


Fresh Start

by queermoraghid (TheDoctorIsIcecube)



Series: Fresh Start Series (Houseshare AU) [1]
Category: Xenoblade Chronicles 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Blades are just humans, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Developing Relationships, Dromarch and Azurda are cats, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Limited spoilers, Team as Family, houseshare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-02-27 21:34:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 35,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13257084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDoctorIsIcecube/pseuds/queermoraghid
Summary: Rex pretty much felt like his life had hit a dead end at age eighteen. He never finished school and was stuck in a low paying job in a city he didn't have the time to get to know, and then to top it all off his apartment introduced a no pets policy so he was forced to find somewhere new to live.He never quite anticipated that it would turn out the way it was. His new house share was full of characters, and those characters were soon to change his life - for better or worse.





	1. Arrival

Rex wasn't the sort to mix with the students. To most people, Fonsa Myma was a university town with lots and lots of rich important people and even more students. Students didn't tend to appreciate school dropouts straight from care into working. They didn't like that he was poor and had more common sense than them. But therein lay the problem, and from the problem came the situation he was in now; moving into a house share with a bunch of students.

He felt a tiny bit embarrassed, leaving his room for the last time basically at the crack of dawn. It wasn't like it was his fault he had to go, seeing as his landlord was the one who’d introduced a policy banning all pets, but he didn’t really want to face the people he was leaving. So here he was, sneaking out with two suitcases and a grumpy cat in a carrier box at six in the morning. Carrying all of this down several flights of stairs and across the town was going to be a nightmare, but it was a bit late to do anything about it now.

He couldn’t afford a taxi, of course. What kind of minimum wage worker could afford a taxi? Certainly not him. He’d looked it up before and it was a forty minute walk, which was just great when he still felt mostly asleep. This was such a great start to what would probably be an incredibly awkward day. Oh well. There was no sense complaining about what he couldn’t change- it was best to just get on with things and try to make a decent impression on his new housemates. Especially the cute girl he’d been talking to.

It was still dark when he reached the house, and it was only when he reached it that he realised that maybe 6:45am was not the best time to knock on the door and announce his arrival. He didn’t even know who had keys. He didn’t think there was even anyone living here yet, actually. Oh god, he was fucked. Resigning himself to at least three hours of waiting, Rex plonked his suitcases on the ground and perched himself on the front step of the house. Maybe he could catch up on a little more sleep before anyone else showed up…

“Good morning.” After who knows how long, Rex was shocked out of his sort of hazy daydream by someone greeting him with an incredibly strong Ardainian accent. He jumped to his feet and managed an awkward, sleepy grin. “I’m Mòrag, I take it you are waiting to get into this house?”

“Uhh, yeah! Hi, I’m Rex. Nice to-” he paused then, having just noticed the woman standing behind Mòrag. She looked as sleepy as he felt, but that wasn’t what stood out about her. What did stand out was her hair- at least three feet long, bright purple with neon blue tips. “Wow,” he couldn’t help but say. “Um- sorry. What’s your name?”

“I’m Brighid,” she said. She clearly wasn’t from Fonsa Myma either, and Rex was starting to worry that he was going to be stuck in a house with a collection of rich international students while he was dirt poor. “Oh, are you the boy with the cat?”

“I am.” Rex lifted up his cat carrier with a grin. “His name’s Azurda, but I call him Gramps because he acts just like a grumpy old man.” As if to prove his point, the cat turned around to face away from Brighid, letting out an audible sigh. “Sorry about him. I swear he’s nice when you get to know him.”

“As long as he doesn’t wee on the carpet,” Mòrag said, reaching into one of her bags (she had a lot more than he did) and pulling out an envelope. “I have keys here, but not quite enough for one each. I don’t think the landlord was expecting eight people.”

“Eight? Wow, that’s a lot.” Rex hastily stepped aside, clearing away his suitcases so that Mòrag could unlock the door. Hopefully there was enough space for eight people in this house; he knew it definitely didn't have eight bedrooms, so they’d probably all have to share. Rex hoped he’d be able to share with Pyra- for totally innocent reasons, of course.

“Didn’t you read any of the details I sent out to people?” She asked. Rex flushed slightly under her rather imperious gaze and shook his head. She’d sent quite a large document to them and his laptop was honestly just...kaput. “It’s a five bedroom house and there are eight of us.”

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “I-” 

And then he was cut off by someone loudly yelling “WAIT!” at the top of their lungs. Surprised, Rex spun around, discovering a man in an eyepatch and a girl dressed like she was going to some kind of old-fashioned party sprinting towards them. He blinked, unsure what to do except stand there and watch this unfold. From what little he’d seen of Morag, this was going to be an interesting confrontation.

“Ah, good morning, Zeke,” she said. The sarcasm in her voice would probably have knocked Rex over had she been speaking to him, but Zeke barely even blinked. “And Pandoria. It’s nice to meet you both finally. We were just getting into the house, there was no need for you to rush.”

Ah, Zeke. Rex vaguely remembered this person from a very short-lived group chat they’d attempted to set up. He typed everything in all caps. 

“Maybe there was no need, but it seemed better to rush than to inconvenience you! You would have had one foot on the stairs and had to rush back down again to let us in! So really, our running saved you all a precious few seconds.”

“Hmph. What’s certainly not saving us time is standing on the front step talking, so let’s get inside.” Mòrag motioned for Brighid to step inside ahead of her, then headed in. Rex followed behind, casting a glance and an amicable smile back at Zeke and Pandoria.

“And who are you?” Zeke asked, turning to Rex. Rex immediately noticed that he only had one rather small bag. Where was this guy’s stuff? “I am Zeke von Genbu, bringer of-”

“Bringer of overdramatics,” the girl next to him said with a grin, poking Zeke in the side. “He was about to say chaos, and I imagine you’ll agree once you see the way he arranges a sock drawer.”

Rex grinned. Mòrag and Brighid could avoid these two all they wanted, but so far they seemed quite nice, despite their weird appearances. "Name's Rex, nice to meet you. And this is Gramps, don't be offended if he hates you." He lifted the cat carrier once again, giving Zeke and Pandoria a nice view of his pet's tail and not much else. He was very good at hiding when he wanted to be.

"Good to meet you, Gramps," Zeke said, wiggling his fingers in the direction of the bars in the cage. Gramps ignored him. "Hmm, tough crowd. Maybe he'll warm up to me, eh?" Rex didn't like to say that it was unlikely that would happen, so he kept his mouth shut and headed inside.

The house was fairly spacious- lucky, considering it was going to be home to eight people- and decorated with the same warm colours that Uraya was famous for. Rex had always been a fan of blue more than rich reds and purples, but he supposed it wasn't too bad. As long as the red walls didn't glow at night like the red trees outside, he'd be just fine living in a place like this.

"Looks pretty fancy," he said, kicking his shoes off at the door and trying to find somewhere to temporarily dump his bags before they sorted out rooms. "Certainly nicer than the last place I lived in."

"Shoes on the shoe rack," Mòrag said in that imperious tone, pointing to a shelf by the door. "I hope you're all capable of keeping this place somewhat clean. Rex, your cat had better be house trained. If not, you're in trouble."

"I've lived in a flat before," he said, trying not to scowl at her too much. "I have a litter tray and he always uses it. He's not a kitten and he doesn't cause any trouble."

"You're being a little harsh on him, Mòrag." Brighid lightly rested a hand on her arm, and Rex was surprised to see Mòrag actually relax slightly for the first time since he'd seen her. 

"Alright... I'll take your word for it. My apologies if I offended you, Rex."

"It's cool," he said. Honestly, he was a bit scared of her, and slightly embarrassed that she was apologising. "I mean I was kicked out of my old place because of the cat, but only because the landlord just changed the rules on the spot."

Before anyone could reply, there was a sharp knock at the door. Mòrag crossed over to open it before anyone else could even take a step. Rex was hoping it would be Pyra- he could really do with having a familiar face around- but his hopes were dashed when a Gormotti girl stepped into the house instead. She was also carrying a cat basket, Rex noted. "Mornin'," she said, a bright smile on her face. "You're all up bright and early." She kicked her shoes off in pretty much the same way Rex had done only a few moments before, but this time Mòrag didn't say a word as Brighid shot her a warning look.

"The day waits for no one, so you must seize it at the earliest opportunity!" Rex couldn't help but pull a face at Zeke's cheesy line, and he noticed the Gormotti girl wincing slightly as well. She seemed alright. Slightly more normal than his other housemates, perhaps.

"We're just waiting for two more to arrive now," Brighid said. "The hall is rather filling up with bags. Should we start sorting out who will be sleeping where?"

The Gormotti girl glanced around at all of them as if she was expecting something more, and then rolled her eyes. "My name's Nia, since you were all obviously dying to know." Yeah, Rex definitely liked her. She seemed down-to-earth without being quite as uptight and particular as Mòrag.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I already knew you from when we spoke before," Brighid said. Rex decided he liked her too, and she seemed a bit like a balancer for Mòrag. "It's nice to properly meet you, Nia. Who's your little friend?"

"This? His name's Dromarch, I've had him since I was a kid. He acts all aloof, but he's a right softie when you get to know him. Gets along well with other cats, too." Nia flashed him a smile, and Rex glanced down at his own cat carrier. Azurda lived up to his reputation as the grumpy Gramps and generally just ignored every other cat in his presence.

"Can't say the same about mine," he said. "Azurda doesn't exactly hate others, he just doesn't exactly like them either. He's old and grumpy and likes to sleep. I'm Rex, by the way." He tacked the last sentence on the end, realising he hadn't said a thing about himself.

Mòrag looked like she was about to speak up about room sharing again when there was yet another knock at the door. Rex bounded forwards to answer this one- with the odds getting slimmer, this had a much higher chance to be Pyra. He opened the door, glancing up to see a familiar face- in a very unfamiliar style. Rex blinked. The Pyra he'd been talking to had red hair, and a rather shy smile. This girl, however, was nearly the exact opposite. "Uh... Pyra?"

The girl frowned at him immediately and shook her head. "I'm not Pyra," she said. Titan's foot, they even had the same sort of voice, but even then they sounded different in every way.

"I'm Pyra," a voice called from slightly further away, and Rex immediately attempted to look over the shoulder of the blonde girl in front of him. "Oh, hi Rex!"

"Hi!" That was the face he remembered, and she was still pretty enough to render at least half of his usual mental functions useless. Good to know. Even after a couple of months of chatting online, seeing her in person again made him unable to help grinning. 

"Hey. Quit staring at my little sister." The blonde girl glared at him, and Rex looked at her with surprise. Pyra had never mentioned a sister. That explained the similar looks, though.

"Oh, you're-" the girl just glared at him, so he closed his mouth quickly.

"Aw, leave him alone, Mythra," Pyra said, smiling at him again. When she took her shoes off, she put them on the shoe rack. Rex imagined that Mòrag was having an internal party in that moment. "Rex, meet my twin sister Mythra. Mythra, this is Rex, the boy I've been talking to about this place for weeks."

"Erm, nice to meet you, Mythra." Rex reached up, awkwardly scratching at the back of his neck. Mythra was just as pretty as Pyra, but at least ten times more terrifying. Pyra, he wanted to date. Mythra, he'd much rather just stay well away from her. She looked like she would get along pretty well with Mòrag, though.

"Perhaps we should do introductions again," Zeke said, waving his arms in a decidedly dramatic and unnecessary way. "So the shadows of unfamiliarity are cast away from this shadowy hall."

"You said 'shadow' twice in one sentence," Mòrag said dryly. "But fine. I am Mòrag, this is Brighid, our resident clown is Zeke, his...eccentric friend is Pandoria, that's Nia with the cat, and obviously you three know each other already." She sighed. "Now- let's finally figure out who's sharing with who."

"I don't mind," Pyra said immediately. "As long as other people don't mind me, I have no preference for who I'm sharing with."

"I'll be sharing with Mòrag," Brighid offered. "That leaves four rooms between the six of you, if you want to sort that out somehow."

"Oh, I'll share with Zeke!" Pandoria smiled brightly, grasping onto Zeke's arm. Rex couldn't quite figure those two out- either they were dating or they were exceptionally close friends.

That left him, Mythra, Pyra, and Nia, and there were three rooms left. If he suggested sharing with Pyra, he was probably going to have his hand bitten off. "If no one minds, could I have a room to myself? Dromarch likes his space and I don't have the most typical sleep schedule, don't wanna get people up."

Well, that made things a little easier. Nia's request meant that there were two rooms left- it was simply a matter of if Rex got his own space or got a chance to share with Pyra. He kept his mouth shut, waiting for one of the sisters to make a suggestion. Anything he said would probably earn him another Mythra glare, and one of those per day was more than enough.

"Do you want to go by yourself?" Pyra asked, looking at Mythra as she spoke. "Then I won't get in the way of your studying." Mythra looked at Rex critically for a moment, and then looked at Pyra, and then nodded.

"Sure, that'd be good," she said. Her look at Rex said that she thought it was anything but good, but she didn't say it, and she barely even implied it in her tone. Rex had a feeling he would have to guard...something during the night. For his own safety.

He resisted the urge to victory-punch the air, settling instead for a smile at Pyra. "Well, that was all nice and easy. Shall we all go get settled in?" Rex could hear Gramps scratching at his cage, probably desperate to go and find something valuable or very clean to curl up and sleep on.

“One of the bedrooms for two people is on the ground floor, just over there,” Mòrag said, indicating a door just to the left of them, past the main section of the hallway. “And then there are four bedrooms upstairs. One of those is a converted study.”

Zeke made a dash for the downstairs bedroom, looking almost like he expected to be stopped. No one stopped him. Pandoria followed behind, pausing to shrug somewhat apologetically.

“Well, that’s that one sorted. I imagine it’s for the best, keeping those two out of everyone’s way. They seem noisy.” The way Mòrag said noisy made it sound almost like a swear word of some sort. Rex had to wonder how she coped with being a student, if that was indeed what she was.

“Maybe we’ll hear them anyway, if they really like going at it,” Nia said, and Rex hid his laugh with a cough in an attempt to avoid Mòrag’s disapproving glare. He hoped that they weren’t loud in the way Nia was insinuating.

“Thank you for that image, Nia. Anyways. Brighid and I will be taking the bedroom at the end of the upstairs corridor. You four can fight it out amongst yourselves for the rest of the rooms.” With that, Mòrag strode off upstairs, Brighid following behind her. Brighid paused before heading up the stairs, leaning in to whisper to the rest of them. 

“I promise she’s not usually this bad. She’ll calm down a little after a day or two, really.” Slightly intimidated, Rex just nodded and watched as the pair of them disappeared when they reached the top of the stairs.

“Mòrag is scary,” he said, keeping his voice down in case she was still somehow able to hear.

“She is a little,” Pyra agreed. Mythra and Nia both looked at each other and rolled their eyes perfectly in sync, as if they’d planned it. “Hey, I saw that! Come on, Rex agrees with me.” She stepped a little closer to him, and Rex felt his cheeks flush slightly. He really was hopeless when it came to crushes.

“She’s a bit stressy but moving is pretty stressful,” Mythra said. “Just let her be and get on with what we’re meant to be doing, okay? I’m sure you have stuff to unpack, unless your suitcases are just full of air.”

“Oh, d’you want to try lifting one of these? They aren’t full of air.” Rex lugged one of his suitcases over to Mythra, who gave him an absolutely acidic look and then proceeded to pick his bag up as if it weighed nothing. 

“Take this to your room and do try not to look too weak. And you’d better let my sister choose which bed she wants, alright? Be nice to her.” 

“Mythra, leave him alone…” Pyra picked up her own bags, casting a slightly resentful look at her twin before heading up the stairs. “You don’t have to police everything my friends do.” Pyra had called him a friend. Holy shit. Pyra just referred to him as one of her friends.

“If I don’t do it, no one will,” she said with a shrug, lifting two bags at the same time and carrying them up the stairs before turning left. “Nia, which of the single rooms do you want?”

“The bigger one, if that’s okay. Because of this little guy.” Nia lifted her cat carrier, and Rex peered inside to get a proper look at Dromarch. He was almost pure white, but he didn't look sweet and spoiled like a lot of white cats seemed to. Instead, there was a strange, almost grizzled sort of look to him. Like a tiger, but very much smaller.

“He’s cute,” he said, and Nia immediately grinned.

“If he could understand what cute means, he’d probably scratch your face for saying that,” she said. “He’s a pompous little shit, thinks he’s the most important thing in the room. Then again, he usually is.”

“My cat’s just the same.” Rex lifted Azurda’s carrier, and was surprised to see the cat actually turn around and observe Dromarch with wide eyes. “Huh. I think Gramps likes him. That’s weird. Not complaining, though.”

“I’ll probably let him out once people are settled down and not likely to put suitcases on his tail or something,” Nia said. “He’s pretty good with new places so maybe he’ll come say hello to Gramps later.” Rex nodded, and at that point he reached the top of the stairs at turned right to go into the bedroom he’d be sharing with Pyra.

This one room was probably at least two-thirds as large as his entire flat. Pyra was already in there, sitting on the bed nearest the window. 

“Rex! Is it alright if I have this bed?” She smiled at him, and Rex felt a little more of his brain turn to mush.

“Uhh, yeah. That’s fine!” He gave his best attempt at a smile back, trying not to stare as Pyra smiled even more brightly at him and set about unpacking her bags. Rex sat there for a few moments contemplating how awkward he was and then stood up to get his second suitcase from where it was sitting at the bottom of the stairs.

He let himself let out a deep breath once he was away from anyone else’s eyes. This was sort of stressful, but he knew he needed the change. He needed to put himself out more, hopefully break out of the endless cycle of working all the time and only barely having enough money to survive. This was nerve wracking, especially now he was sharing a room with Pyra, but he felt like it was necessary. He needed this. And hey- his housemates were definitely interesting. Maybe this would be fun.


	2. Lunch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The new housemates get to know each other a little.

Rex spent most of the morning unpacking, exploring the house, and trying to convince Gramps to leave his cat carrier. Neither he nor Pyra could tempt him out with anything, so in the end Rex resorted to simply leaving the carrier on the floor and walking off. It was just about lunchtime, anyway, so Azurda would just have to find his own way out. Silly cat.

Of course, when he went down to the kitchen when he realised he was hungry, he realised that he didn’t have any food except a very small apple that was in his bag because that was the only thing still left in his section of the fridge when he left the apartment. Well shit. He didn’t even know where the closest supermarket was. 

He was in the process of trying to look up the closest shop that sold food when he heard footsteps, and glanced up to see Brighid. “Oh, hey. Don’t suppose you know this place any better than I do? Can’t tell where the nearest shop is, and I’m starving.”

“Oh, we brought some food with us,” Brighid said. “Enough for everyone to eat something before people can get a chance to go grocery shopping, anyway. The nearest small shop is about a five minute walk from here, but the nearest actual supermarket is a fair trek.”

“You brought food? Okay, I like you.” Rex grinned. 

“Actually, it was Mòrag’s idea. She’s not that great of a cook, though, so I got stuck with actually making the food.” Brighid crossed over to the fridge, pulling out some plastic containers. “I hope you don’t mind vegetarian food. And perhaps you could fetch the others? It would seem nice to all eat together, I think.”

“Sure,” he said, trying to remember which door led to Zeke and Pandoria’s room. He knocked first, just in case they were doing something...compromising, and then went in. “Brighid made lunch for everyone, do you wanna come eat?”

“Of course,” Zeke said, making a funny hand gesture again. He really was strange. “I would be happy to engage in consumption as a group.”

“Isn’t consumption an old-timey illness?” Pandoria mimicked Zeke’s hand gesture, and Rex glanced between the two of them with mild confusion. 

“Sorry if it’s a weird question, but are you two- together?” Rex just couldn’t quite puzzle them out. They seemed to act like a couple half the time, but at the same time, they were also vastly different in terms of style.

Zeke and Pandoria laughed in unison, practically doubled over, but in an exaggerated way that made Rex slightly concerned. He got the feeling that they were asked this question pretty frequently if they had a practised response. “No, chap, of course not!” Zeke grinned. “We’ve been through thick and thin, Pandy and me.”

“I,” Pandoria corrected.

“Pandy and me have been friends practically all our lives,” he said. “We’re good friends.”

“Very good friends, I can see, heh…” Rex laughed nervously, trying to ignore the fact that Zeke had referred to him as ‘chap’. Honestly, who talked like that? “Anyway, there’s food in the kitchen. Smells pretty good…” It smelled spicy, really. Hopefully no one minded that. 

He backed out of Zeke and Pandoria’s room pretty quickly after that, keen to get upstairs and talk to someone slightly less strange. Rex wondered if Nia was having any more luck with her cat than he had had with his.

First, he went to the room he shared with Pyra, where Pyra was organising books on their shared bookshelf (except Rex didn’t have any books, so really it was hers). “Brighid made some food and wondered if everyone wanted to have lunch now,” he said, and she smiled.

“I’ll be down in a minute,” she said. “I’ll get Mythra if you don’t want to have to knock on her door. She can be a little scary.”

“Oh, thanks.” Flashing Pyra a grateful smile, Rex backed out of the room to go and find Nia. He could hear her talking quietly through the door, but it stopped when he knocked. Stepping into the room, he found her kneeling on the floor opposite Dromarch, who turned his head to regard Rex with great interest. “Um, hey. Brighid made food, she wants everyone to eat lunch together. Can I pet Dromarch?”

“If he’ll let you,” she said, so he crouched down and shuffled closer, holding the palm of his hand out towards the cat. He leaned forward and sniffed it, and when he looked settled again, Rex moved in to gently rub the top of his head. His fur was so thick and almost coarse. He grinned.

“I think he likes me. Aww…” Rex had always had a little bit of a soft spot for animals. It was hard to drag himself away from Dromarch, but the smells drifting up from the kitchen were pretty tempting. “D’you think I should go get Mòrag too, or will she snap at me? I’m not sure she likes any of us except Brighid.”

“I’m sure you can tell her there’s food,” Nia said. “She won’t bite your hand off just for letting her know. I’m pretty sure she’s just stressed, not a monster or anything.”

“Fine, fine,” he said. It was just that Mòrag was scary and she’d already snapped at him a couple of times. He had a feeling he’d made a bad first impression. Perhaps food would be a good peace offering, though. He stood up, waving goodbye to Dromarch and going to knock on Mòrag’s door. 

“What is it? Don’t come in unless you have to.” Well, that was a friendly start. 

“Um, it’s Rex. Brighid wanted me to let everyone know she made lunch. She wants us all to eat together?”

“I’ll be down in a moment,” she said. Rex heard something move from behind the door, and he turned to leave. He did not want to be at her mercy if she came out and decided she wanted to snap at someone again. Better to be in a group at least. He almost felt bad, avoiding her and being sort of annoyed at her attitude, but he would maintain it was her fault for not exactly being approachable. Although, he supposed she had been remarkably efficient at getting everything organised. Without her, the rest of them would probably have still been dithering over who was going to sleep where. 

Back in the kitchen, Brighid had been joined by Zeke and Pandoria, who seemed to be helping her out- or at least trying to. Rex was pretty sure he’d never seen two people make such a mess whilst simply trying to fill cups with water. Hey, at least nothing had been dropped yet.

“I only brought three sets of metal cutlery,” Brighid said, clearly speaking to him. “But there should be some plastic stuff in that green bag on the side there. Mòrag is so ruthlessly prepared I’m sure there’ll be some form of eating utensils.”

“Uh-huh.” Upon closer inspection, Brighid was right; there was a pack of 100 disposable knives and forks in the bag. That ought to be enough, unless someone managed to snap 95 pairs of cutlery. Taking the disposable and the metal cutlery, Rex laid out eight places at the table.

Once Zeke and Pandoria had managed to spill a gallon of water on the table while they practically juggled glasses (Rex was so glad none of them smashed because that was not a conversation anyone would want to have with Mòrag), everyone else had made it down to the kitchen diner where the table had been set.

Rex tactically chose to sit in between Nia and Pyra- the two people in this house who he liked the most so far. Also the two people who were probably least likely to attract glares from Mòrag. Maybe he could get into her good graces through simple association. “So, what is it?” He asked, attracting a smile from Brighid.

“Potatoes, chili, beans, and tomato, mostly,” she said. “It’s fairly standard in Mor Ardain.”

“Sounds nice.” That got an even wider smile from Brighid- and, by extension, a smile from Mòrag. Wow. It was odd, seeing her without some sort of grumpy look on her face. Rex wondered how Brighid had managed to get Mòrag so close to her, seeing as Mòrag didn't really seem like the type to make friends easily. “Are you from Mor Ardain too, Brighid?”

“I am,” she said. “Unlike some people, I can actually manage a passable commons accent.” Mòrag shot her a look that just seemed...fond, and Rex thought it was okay to laugh a tiny bit. It was pretty funny how strong Mòrag’s accent was, but he supposed he shouldn’t be a hypocrite when his wasn’t much better. 

Before any more discussion of accents could be had, Brighid started dishing out the food. Rex couldn’t help but start as soon as he got his plate- it was probably politer to wait, but he was starving. It felt like at least three days since his very small breakfast, even if it was actually more like six hours. Actually, that was still pretty much forever. Ouch.

“Which of you guys are students, then?” Pandoria asked once everyone had realised that maybe they needed to slow down while eating. “I mean, it’s kinda a given. Poor young people sharing a house in Fonsa Myma, statistically we’re students.”

“I’m not,” Rex said through half a mouthful of potato. “I work at the scrap yard across town.” 

“I’m not either,” Nia said, shrugging. Rex looked at her, surprised. “I don’t really do anything much, yet…” From the tone of her voice, Rex could tell there was a story there, but it seemed a bit rude to ask about it now. Maybe later.

“I dropped out of school because I hated it and then moved out of an orphanage and now I’m kinda stuck,” he said, before shoving more food in his mouth so he didn’t have to speak when everyone reacted to that.

“School isn’t for everyone,” Zeke said.

“That’s why he does drama,” Pandoria said immediately.

“So do you!”

“I never said I didn't. You just sounded like you were being pretentious again, so I had to cut you down to size a little.” 

“Me and Pyra are students,” Mythra said, tactfully interrupting before Zeke could do any more indignant spluttering. “She’s studying old books, I’m studying law.”

“I’m studying classics,” Pyra interjected, although rather quietly. “They’re usually not books. They’re poems and poetry and there’s lots of studying art. I wouldn’t be able to study literature, half the books they ask you to read are so dry.”

“I’m doing a masters in Urayan Literature,” Brighid said immediately, a note of sarcasm in her voice. Pyra looked horrified.

“Oh- I’m sorry, I didn't mean to offend you, I just…”

“It’s alright, I know my subject isn’t for everyone. Trust me, I’ve heard much worse things said about literature. I’ve probably said some of them myself, in moments of extreme frustration.”

“I can verify that one,” Mòrag said, a small smile on her face. “Uretes, was it?” Brighid let out a long, exaggerated groan and shoved Mòrag in the shoulder.

“Do not speak his name in my presence. I would be happy if someone burnt those poems on my funeral pyre.”

“Don’t worry, you’re hardly the only one who gets frustrated. I’d quite happily punch at least half of the politicians I’ve learnt about in my time.” Mòrag paused. “I’m doing a masters in international politics,” she said by way of explanation. Rex, somehow, wasn’t surprised. Mòrag seemed like exactly the type to be a politician.

“Oh, you’re-” Mythra sounded suddenly very surprised, but Mòrag shot her with such a sharp glare that she cut herself off. “No? Okay. I get it. The food is great, by the way. Nice job, whoever made it. Brighid?”

“Thank you. I’m happy to cook for everyone again some time, this has been a nice meal. I’m glad you enjoyed it.” Brighid gave Mythra another one of those disarming smiles she seemed to be very good at, and Mythra looked a little surprised. Something told Rex she was used to having to argue with everyone, for some reason. Or maybe she just liked arguing.

“Yeah, thank you!” He said, going over to the sink and running the tap to wash his plate. “Should I just put the plastic cutlery in the bin? I promise I have some somewhere, I just completely forgot to unwrap all my utensil stuff so it’s all still upstairs.”

“Mm, go ahead.” Mòrag waved a hand towards the bin. As if cued by that gesture, everyone else at the table started to clear up as well. Rex backed out of the kitchen, leaning against the wall so as not to get in anyone’s way. 

Honestly, this was all a bit overwhelming and strange still, but he was starting to see how he could like it here. People were friendly and even Mòrag wasn’t too bad now things seemed to have settled down slightly. He didn’t know how things were going to be once the newness of it all wore off, but for now he was enjoying it.

Pyra came out of the kitchen and he smiled at her, and she smiled back, and his heart melted again. Actually, now he reassessed things, it was still going to be great when the newness was gone because Pyra was here. He’d forgotten just how pretty she was in person after weeks of only talking to her online. And he got to share a room with her… Rex hoped he didn't do anything embarrassing, like snore or talk in his sleep. He didn't want her asking to share with Mythra instead. 

He supposed they could cross that bridge when they came to it. There wasn’t exactly much privacy in their shared room, and he hoped Pyra didn’t mind. He was pretty used to being in cramped areas, but honestly he’d managed to get pretty familiar with having his own private space once he’d moved out of Fonsett. Not that it had been a very large private space, but still- sharing a room again would take a lot of getting used to.


	3. Crush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rex and Pyra get a chance to talk, just the two of them (and Gramps).

Sharing a room with a girl was a little more awkward than Rex had anticipated. It was drawing closer to nighttime, but neither he nor Pyra had moved from their beds- it seemed like ‘I’m going to go take a shower now’ was just really hard to say for some reason. Rex didn't want to think about Pyra going to shower, because then he would be imagining her naked, and that was just...something he didn't want to get into right now. Maybe...maybe they could talk about something else, though, and he could leave those more awkward thoughts until he was in the shower himself.

“I thought you said you had plenty of money?” He asked, internally cursing himself for putting his foot in his mouth like that. Asking people about money was just a super bad conversation idea. “Why are you sharing with a bunch of strangers if you could just get another house with your sister or something?”

“Um-” Pyra shifted on her bed, turning to face Rex and crossing her legs. “It was my idea, actually. You know, we’re students now, and I wanted to do the whole student thing...properly. I’d feel strange if I just isolated myself from everyone else my own age.”

“Fair ‘nough,” he said, shoving his phone into his pocket to make it clearer that he was listening to her. “I guess I just wanted to get out of my old place. And I was kicked out, I guess, ‘cause of Gramps. But that gave me the push to get away from doing the same thing every day and never really talking to anyone.”

“Well, you’ve got plenty of people to talk to now. Maybe a few too many, but...that’s life.” Rex remembered Pyra telling him that she could be pretty shy around new people, so he could only imagine how awkward this first day had been for her. 

“Yeah… Not really sure what to make of everyone yet. Nia is nice, and I like her cat. Zeke’s just...weird. Y’know that he and Pandoria aren’t actually a couple?”

“Wait, really?” She asked. “I thought...they seemed very close. Very close. As in they’d have their hands all over each other if we weren’t looking, and they were only not doing it because they didn’t want to make a bad first impression.”

“Yeah, apparently they’re just friends,” he said. “That’s what they told me, anyway. That they’d been through a lot of stuff together or something.”

“Huh.” Pyra shrugged. “Each to their own. What do you think about Mòrag and Brighid? Brighid seems nice, really nice, but Mòrag… I won’t lie, she scares me a little.” 

“Yeah, me too.” Rex laughed. “I don’t know what her deal is, but I hope she calms down soon.”

“I think Brighid said she’s nervous or something,” Pyra said, “but she reminds me of Mythra, sort of, in the way she has airs and stuff, but Mythra isn’t nervous in this kind of situation at all. Also, she doesn’t seem nervous, just...really tetchy.”

“I don’t think Mythra likes me very much either.” Rex knew exactly why that was, although Pyra didn't seem to have noticed yet. She was rather innocent, considering how aware of the world her twin seemed to be. He hadn’t noticed when they’d been speaking online, at least not much, but here it was clear as anything.

“She’ll warm up to you,” she said. “She gets a bit embarrassed around strangers, especially if I know them and she doesn’t. She’s used to knowing everything, so when I know something she doesn’t, even if it’s about people, she gets a bit sniffy about it. She’s also a bit protective, I guess, but you don’t need to worry about it. She won’t hate you forever.”

“I hope not. I don’t hate her, she’s just a bit intimidating.” Rex leaned forwards on his bed, peering down at where Gramps had finally emerged from his cat carrier and had taken up refuge under Rex’s bed. “She makes me want to hide like Gramps is doing. Daft cat.”

“Aww, but he’s lovely!” Pyra said. “He’s fluffier than I imagined too, from the pictures you sent before. He’s such a pretty cat and I bet he’s great for company.”

“He is when he feels like being company,” he said, glancing down at him again. “When he’s crabby, you just have to leave him alone to sleep.”

“Poor kitty. He’s probably traumatised from all the moving around. He’s just not used to this house yet.” Pyra slid off her bed, kneeling on the floor and bending down to look at Azurda. “Hey, Gramps. You doing okay under there?” He blinked at her, then settled his head back down on the floor and closed his eyes.

“Told you, he needs his beauty sleep.” Pyra laughed as he said that and inched her hand closer to him. “He won’t like it if you do that,” he warned, and she pulled her hand away with a nod.

“Okay kitty,” she said, moving to lean her back against her bed while still sitting on the floor. “You do what you like.”

“Oh, he will.” There was a faint shuffling sound from under the bed, and Pyra laughed.

“Aww, he’s lying on his back. He’s so cute... “

“Don’t fall for it. Go to tickle him and he’ll savage your hands. Cats can be proper bastards when they want to be.”

“Don’t be so mean to him,” she said, pouting at him, but Rex noticed that she didn’t move to stroke Gramps, so she probably believed him. “I bet Rex is just jealous that you’re getting all the attention, isn’t he, Azurda?”

Azurda mewed and Rex snorted. “He can’t actually understand you, you know.”

“Hmm. Mew again if you can understand me, Gramps.” Gramps mewed once again, and Pyra laughed triumphantly. “There we go, that settles it. Just because you don’t believe your cat is smart doesn’t mean I can’t. We’re going to be great friends, aren’t we, Gramps?” And then the cat mewed again, because of course he responded to both his name and his nickname. Of course.

“Dumb cat,” he said, grinning. Pyra looked up and, seeing him smiling, she grinned back at him. And there went his heart rushing in his chest again. She was so pretty. Then her grin faded slightly, and she tilted her head to the side, obviously a little concerned.

“Is it too hot in here or something? You’re looking kind of red, Rex.” Of course, that didn't exactly help the situation. Because now he knew he looked embarrassed and that made him feel even worse and he could practically feel his cheeks being singed by the force of his own blushing.

“I- it’s fine in here,” he said. “I guess I just didn’t get enough sleep or something?” That didn’t explain anything, but Pyra seemed to accept it. The smile returned to her lips, and she shifted back to sit on her bed again.

“It’s getting kinda late, isn’t it? I lost track of the time talking to you. Oops.” Rex tried to pretend like that wasn’t the most flattering thing anyone had said to him in a very long time. “It’s been a pretty tiring day. I think I’ll go and take a shower now, providing no one’s using the bathroom upstairs.”

“See ya,” he said. He hadn’t even thought about how there were going to be a whole ton of them sharing just two bathrooms...this house wasn’t really designed for eight. This was going to be interesting. Rex shifted to lie back on his bed as Pyra gathered up a towel and left the room. As soon as she was gone, he sighed, pressing his hands to his cheeks. Yup. Still warm. His little crush wasn’t going to stay hidden for long, that much was clear.

Maybe he should act on it. He didn’t want to push Pyra away and he really liked being friends, but he just...he couldn’t exactly avoid that he was crushing on her a lot. She was so pretty and she was nice to everyone and she seemed to actually like him. She was willing to take time to speak to him when he was just some stupid kid with no future and she was studying at Fonsa Myma University. That was...she’d never want to have a long term commitment to someone like him. That was what worried him most.

Maybe she’d take the decision out of his hands and turn out to be gay, or tell him she was already dating someone, or maybe she’d meet a nice guy at the university. Someone who was actually going somewhere in life. She probably deserved that. But Rex couldn’t stop hoping. He’d tell her how he felt at some point, but...not today. Probably not any time in the next week, or even the next month. But at some point, he swore to himself that he would do it.


	4. Goals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nia and Rex get a chance to talk properly for the first time.

By the next day at midday, the house was pretty much silent. Rex supposed that was inevitable with the uni terms starting, but he hadn’t realised just how quickly they’d all clear out in the morning or how quiet it would be when they were gone. For a while, he was happy enough to stay in bed, because he’d struggled to sleep in a new place with a girl in the room. He hoped he’d get better at that. He’d also heard some sort of disturbance during the night, but he never got out of bed to check it out.

“Oi, Rex!” That was Nia, presumably emerging for the first time that day. She still sounded sleepy. “D’ya mind if I come in? Wanted to ask you about something.”

“Uhh, yeah, give me a moment!” Rex shooed Gramps off the bed (when had he got there?), and hastily straightened out the bedclothes to make it look like he hadn’t been lazing around since breakfast. “Okay, come in. What d’you want to ask?”

Nia opened the door after a moment and immediately leant on the door frame. Damn, she was kinda cool. “Wanted to know if you heard what was going on last night,” she said. “It didn’t sound good and I just wanted to check that it actually happened and it wasn’t a dream or something.”

“Couldn’t work out what it was,” he admitted. “I heard some people yelling outside and then I think someone sorted it out, because it stopped, but I don’t know exactly what went down. I couldn’t even hear what they were yelling.”

“You couldn’t hear it? They were shouting some lovely things about foreign students. I think someone outside must have noticed I’m Gormotti.” Nia folded her arms. She looked distinctly angry. Rex couldn’t blame her. Urayans weren’t known for being the most tolerant of people, especially since all the issues with Mor Ardain, but he would have thought they’d be used to foreign students by now.

“They’re going to be thrilled when they realise that there are Ardanian students here,” he said. He was now starting to realise that while their diverse backgrounds may be interesting for him, it was also going to be interesting in a bad way when their neighbours started figuring it out. “I wish they’d grow up a tad. We’re not exactly spies.”

Nia snorted. “Maybe not, but…” She trailed off then, frowning. Rex was dying to ask her what the ‘but’ meant, but he didn't want to incur the wrath of yet another female in this house. Pissing off two out of six was more than enough for him.

Luckily, before any awkward silence could occur, Dromarch wandered into the room. Gramps immediately sat up, regarding him with extreme suspicion. “Come on Gramps, Dromarch won’t hurt you,” Rex said. “He won’t, will he?” He asked, looking quickly over to Nia, who just snorted and shook her head.

Gramps regarded Dromarch with suspicion for a few moments more, then stood up and prowled in a slow circle around him. That seemed to be enough for him, because his next move was to flop back onto the ground and allow Dromarch to flop down right next to him.  
“Huh. Haven’t seen him actually be friendly with another cat in a while. Normally he just ignores them.”

“Dromarch is specially charming,” she said, looking sort of proud as she said it even though cats were clearly independent and she probably had no influence on the nature of Dromarch. Rex didn’t say as much, though. “Everyone loves him, and he basically never leaves my side.”

“Gramps likes me, usually. Everyone else...depends on whether or not they respect his privacy.” Rex grinned. “His name’s Azurda because that’s what his old owners called him, but he’s always been Gramps to me. I don’t think he minds which name you use.” 

“Ah, so he’s a rescue?” She asked, and Rex just shrugged.

“Sort of,” he said. “His previous owners loved him a lot but the economy and support back home isn’t exactly the greatest and when they lost a crop to a fire and then had a kid, they didn’t have the space or the money to keep an old cat around anymore.”

“I’ve had Dromarch since he was a kitten. He was a stray, poor little thing, and I ended up looking after him. We’ve...been through a lot together. An awful lot. As you can probably see by all those scars he’s managed to get. Could you believe he used to be all fluffy like some rich kid’s pet?”

“He’s still pretty fluffy,” Rex said. “He has really nice fur. Did he get into fights a lot where you used to live or something? He doesn’t really seem like a super outdoorsy cat.” Gramps used to be very much an outdoors cat, and he used to catch mice too, but those days were long gone. On the other hand, Dromarch seemed like quite a young cat still, but he wasn’t antsy about getting outside.

“...Sort of.” Nia didn't offer any further details than that, so Rex didn't ask. This was probably one of those things where you had to be a much closer friend before she even considered opening up about it. That seemed to describe a lot of things about Nia’s past, actually. She didn’t seem to like talking about herself at all.

“Have you lived in Uraya before?” He asked. That was an unobtrusive question, right? “I’d never even been here before I moved a few months ago, and I haven’t really had a chance to go out because I don’t have the money to pay for protection or anything. I’d love to see the bulk of Uraya, though.”

“I’ve never lived here before, no. I’ve visited plenty of times, though. I...used to travel a lot. Never did get much time to see the sights, though.” Nia sighed.

“Ah, I’ve seen them all now. It’s all very pretty, but there’s only so many times you can see glowing trees before they stop being so take-your-breath-away pretty. You know where I’d like to visit? Mor Ardain.”

“Mor Ardain is really hot and dusty,” Nia said. “The titan has been dead for...I don’t know how long, honestly. I don’t know how people live there, actually. It’s pretty much a hellhole. Alba Cavanich is nice though, if you like that kind of thing. Basically nothing like here.”

“I work in a scrapyard. All that mechanical stuff is pretty cool to me.” Not that he had any idea how most of it worked. He didn't get paid enough for anyone to bother teaching him that. Still, Mor Ardain and their technological marvels would be fun to at least have a poke around.

“Yeah, I grew up in Gormott so it doesn’t have the same appeal to me,” she said. “It’s all natural there. Have you ever been to Gormott? Or anywhere, outside of here and wherever you said you came from?”

“The Leftherian Archipelago,” he said. “Nah, I haven’t. No money to travel, no money to go to a fancy school, nothing. It kinda sucks that I haven’t seen anything else.”

“How comes you ended up in Uraya?”

“It’s just where I happened to get a job.” Rex shrugged. “Affording the trip over here cost a ton, but the people in my village lent me some money. I think they were all glad to see someone actually leave Fonsett Village. Doesn’t happen often.”

“Aw, cute,” she said, leaning over to stroke Dromarch. “Do you even get phone signal in somewhere like Leftheria? What’s it even like there?”

“Isolated,” he said with a grin. “You have to walk for days to get to any other settlements even in the Archipelago and it’s all full of dangerous wildlife and Ardanian exiles and stuff so there’s not much to do except swim in the cloud sea.”

“Ugh…” Nia shuddered. “I hate the cloud sea. It doesn’t feel like water, it feels like it’s trying to suck you under. Don’t know how anyone could enjoy that.”

“I do,” Rex said, feeling just a touch offended. “It’s nice. Doesn’t feel quite as cold as swimming in regular water.”

“Pfft. What are you, a salvager?”

“I wish,” he said. When he was really little he used to dream of being a salvager. Now...it just wasn’t realistic. To be a salvager you needed combat training and diving training and all sorts of things he couldn’t afford and would probably never be able to afford. The best he could hope for was picking through the junk salvagers dredged up.

“Hey, you’ll get there one day.” Nia smiled at him, and Rex felt strangely comforted. Nia hadn’t shown any signs of supportiveness before this, but she had a self-assured way about her that made it easy to believe what she said.

“So long as we don’t get lynched by our neighbours,” he said with a grin. Nia frowned.

“Honestly I wouldn’t joke about that if I were you,” she said. “I’m pretty sure that actually happens to Ardanians in Uraya, or near enough. You’d think that they’d move on seeing as it’s been so long since the ceasefire now, and the countries have friendly relations and all, but apparently not.”

“Ouch. Gotta feel bad for Mòrag and Brighid.” Rex winced. Brighid was nice enough, and her accent ambiguous enough, that he couldn’t imagine anyone ever trying to hurt her. Mòrag, on the other hand, was so obviously Ardanian that Rex was surprised she hadn’t already been beaten up.

“They’ve survived however many years they’ve been here,” she said. “I think they’re fine. They wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t, right? They’d be long gone back to Mor Ardain or they could have gone to Indol or Gormott or something if it’s too sciency back at home. I doubt we’re in danger of anything except lost sleep. At least, hopefully.”

“Hopefully,” Rex echoed. He fell silent, his gaze turning to their two cats- still cuddled up together on the floor. He was about to comment on them when his phone buzzed in his pocket; upon inspection, it proved to be a message from the scrapyard. “Ugh… I’m needed at work. Gotta go, sorry. Um- it was nice talking to you.”

“Wow, they just call you in?” She asked. Rex nodded.

“It’s only a fifteen minute walk from me and they just pay me by the hour when I’m needed. It’s shit work so the pay’s just about good enough if they call me once every other day, which usually happens. Cities produce a lot of scrap.”

“I suppose.” Nia peeled herself away from the doorframe, glancing down at the cats. “I’ll leave those two alone, if you don’t mind Dromarch being in your room whilst you’re gone. He won’t wreck anything, promise.” 

“It’s fine,” Rex said, already packing his bag for work. “It’s good to know they get along.”

“I was worried he’d be a bit lonely if I managed to get my life going,” she said with a smile. “Guess I don’t have to worry so much anymore. Everyone here is so nice, and you’ve all been- there’s Gramps to keep him company, that’s what I meant.”

“It’s a nice place,” he said. “Have a good day, Nia.”

“Same to you too,” she said. “Try not to get too bored at the scrapyard.” She smiled at him as he left, following him for a few steps to get back to her room. Rex found himself smiling too. It had been a while since he’d actually, genuinely made a friend, and with Nia...he thought he might have done just that.


	5. Midnight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rex gets back from work late to find a surprise in the living room.

It was nearly midnight when Rex finally got to make his way home from the scrapyard. He was starving, and- just his luck- he’d forgotten to bring any money to buy food on the way home. Seemed like he’d just have to sneak around the kitchen making himself a sandwich, then. 

It was dark and sort of creepy in the house on his own at midnight, but he was pretty sure that not everyone was asleep yet. Pyra had mentioned that Mythra was a very light sleeper and he had definitely heard noise from Zeke and Pandoria’s room as he passed. But all the same, he didn’t want to wake anyone up.

Rex wasn’t that great at sneaking around, but nevertheless, he managed to assemble a simple ham sandwich without dropping anything or noticeably waking anyone else up. He didn't bother finding a plate, instead tiptoeing through into the living room to eat his sandwich in peace. He was just about to sit down when-

“Sit on these sofas smelling like that and I will personally make you scrub every single inch of this room clean.” Mòrag’s voice sounded sharp and was so completely unexpected that Rex dropped his sandwich on the sofa.

“I- wait, what?” He whirled around to look towards the source of the voice and sure enough Mòrag was sitting in the chair that was just out of his sight when he’d turned the light on. Didn’t that mean she’d been sitting in the dark?

“You heard me. Clean up that sandwich now, please.” Rex didn't even bother arguing or questioning what Mòrag was doing sitting in the dark at this time of night, although he could have sworn that as he bent down to pick up his sandwich he saw her reach up to rub her eyes. 

“Sorry,” he said, glancing around the room and perching on the edge of a wooden chair instead. “Um- are you okay?”

“I am fine,” she said, though now he thought about it, her voice sounded a bit rough and tired. “I woke up and was unable to get back to sleep but did not want to bother Brighid or wake her up.”

“So you were sitting in the dark waiting for someone to show up?”

“I was sitting in the dark reading,” she corrected.

“Reading?” Rex glanced around, seeing no evidence of a book.

“On my phone,” Mòrag said, rolling her eyes. 

“Huh. Alright.” Rex took a bite of his sandwich, and then another- he hadn’t realised quite how hungry he was. He devoured the whole thing as quickly as he could, well aware that Mòrag was giving him a rather weary glare the whole time. When he was finished, he met her gaze, for some reason finding it a whole lot less intimidating now than he had earlier. “You know, whenever I can’t sleep, I make myself hot chocolate. D’you want some?”

“I am- fine. If it would make you feel any better I would not object, however.” That almost definitely meant that she wanted some but didn’t want to ask. Mòrag really was a rather strange person. There were a couple of Ardainians who worked in the scrapyard, and none of them were like her.

“I’ll go make some.” Rex jumped up from the chair, heading out into the kitchen. He wasn’t the world’s best cook, but living on his own for a while meant that he’d managed to pick up a few basic things. As he worked, he couldn’t help but glance back at Mòrag- she was bent over her phone now, tapping out a rather long message to someone, by the looks of things. Rex wondered who.

He knew it was kinda rude to ask, but he was so curious that he had to. “Are you texting someone from home?” He asked. Mòrag jumped and let out a sort of hissing breath.

“No, I am writing an article on the annoyance of nosey housemates,” she said. Rex grimaced. Ouch. “Yes, I am texting someone from home. My brother, who should be asleep by now.”

“Aww. How old’s he?” Rex dipped a finger into the hot chocolate, tasting it. Yep, perfect. He tipped it into two mugs, wishing he had some whipped cream or something to finish it off. Never mind. 

“Fifteen. Surprisingly mature for a teenage boy, unlike some people.” Mòrag tucked her phone away. “That hot chocolate...actually smells rather good.”

“I sorta have tons of siblings,” Rex said. “My guardian runs an orphanage, basically. I’m still in contact with all of them. They’re good kids. It’s kinda weird being away from them, though. I miss them.”

“I still miss my brother sometimes,” Mòrag said. “Even though I have been studying here in Uraya for years, there’s nothing quite like home. Do you plan to go back?”

“Eh, one day. Fonsett Village is home, nothing’s gonna change that. I’ve gotta go back and see everyone some day.” Rex handed Mòrag a mug of hot chocolate, taking his own and carefully sitting down on a sofa. This time, he heard no complaint from Mòrag.

“Living here is quite an experience, I’ll say that,” she said. “Uraya has such a strange climate and speaking in public is an adventure in and of itself.”

“I can imagine,” Rex said, thinking about what Nia had told him earlier. “Do you know what was going on last night? Nia said there were people shouting about foreign students outside or something.”

“Oh.” Mòrag pulled a sour face. “I haven’t lived in a single house in Uraya where that hasn’t happened. I’m...fairly well known at the university, and I’m sure that people who dislike me are having an absolute field day now that I’ve moved into a house with a girl who’s very obviously Gormotti. And the rest of you, of course, but you’re a little less blatantly foreign than poor Nia.”

“Isn’t Zeke from Tantal, too?” Rex asked. “Do the people at the uni really have an issue with Ardainians? Don’t the international students pay sky high fees on top of everything else?”

“There’s barely anyone in Uraya who doesn’t have an issue with Ardainians,” Mòrag said with a frown. “I came here to see if I could understand what we were doing wrong at home and I still haven’t found a reasonable answer.”

“I won’t pretend to know anything about politics, but it seems to me like neither side is much better than the other. You’d all do better if you’d just sit down and talk it out.” Rex bent his head, taking a long slurp of hot chocolate. 

Mòrag snorted. “If only it was that simple, Rex. I know a fair amount about politics, if I say so myself, and if that kind of thing worked there would have been no war in the first place.”

“I said I didn’t know much!” He said, and Mòrag smiled at him. “Really, I know nothing about this. I haven’t even been anywhere except Uraya and Leftheria.”

“Alright, alright. What you may be lacking in political experience, I’d say you make up for with your hot chocolate making skills. So we’re even, just about.” Mòrag paused to take another sip from her mug. “If you don’t mind me asking, where do you work that sends you home smelling like that?”

“Scrapyard,” he said with a shrug. “I sort through all the junk people throw out, mostly looking for electronics or valuable metals. It’s...not fun. It’s dirty and takes forever and some people really throw some shit out, but because of that the pay is pretty decent.”

“Delightful.” Mòrag shifted in her chair, looking rather glad that she didn't have to do Rex’s job. Rex didn't blame her. No one wanted his job. It was like being a salvager without any of the fun parts. 

“Uh, what about you? What do you do?” He realised immediately that she was a student. She was probably just going to say that she studied.

“Well, during term time I do my degree and that’s rather full on,” she said. “But outside of university I work in Alba Cavanich for the Imperial family. It’s why I’m not so popular with the Urayans at my university. If I was anti establishment it would be a different story.”

“You work for the Imperial family? Woah…” Rex leaned forward, his curiosity piqued. Maybe that was why Mòrag seemed so highly strung; working for such important people probably required a lot of meticulous planning. “What do you do for them?”

At that question, Mòrag seemed to retreat a little again, pressing her lips together in a thin line. “Various things,” she said vaguely. “Nothing you need to concern yourself with. If you really must know, look it up in your own time.”

That important that he could look it up, huh? That must be quite something. “Nah,” he said. “If you don’t wanna share it yourself, why would I look it up? That wouldn’t do anything, because it’d just open more questions for me that you still wouldn’t want to answer because I’d be prying.”

Mòrag visibly relaxed, and Rex knew he’d said the right thing. Good. Whoever Mòrag was, he didn't need to pry into her personal life. He took another slurp of hot chocolate, tipping his head back to drain the mug of every last drop. “Mm… It’s getting kinda late. You feeling any better?”

“Remarkably, yes,” she said. “I will be going back to bed. Please, take a shower before you make poor Pyra suffer your stench.”

“Will do,” he said. He’d been planning on that anyway. Some of the stuff he handled really was gross. “Uh, thanks I guess, Mòrag? You were um...kind of scary. Before. So thanks for not murdering me.”

Mòrag laughed- actually laughed- at that. “It’s no problem, Rex. Consider yourself lucky you escaped my wrath this time. But kindly don’t go dropping sandwiches on the furniture again. Alright?”

“Understood.” Rex grinned, leaning over to take Mòrag’s empty mug from her. He heard her moving as he walked into the kitchen to clean the mugs, and by the time he had finished, she had disappeared- presumably headed back upstairs. She was a little strange, but Rex was starting to think that everyone in this house was a little strange. At least they all seemed to be a nice sort of strange.


	6. Work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Rex is at work he meets someone strange.

As Rex headed into work the next day, he found himself being barged out of the way by a man who was probably twice his size. He rubbed at his shoulder, considering shouting something rude at his back but deciding against it. No need to get punched in the face today. 

He made his way to the day’s pile of scrap, glancing over at his work partner- a fairly cheerful Nopon named Tora, who had already started sorting the scrap into boxes. “Hey. Did you see that guy who came in here before me? No idea why he was in such a rush…”

“Scary man is named Malos,” Tora said. “Tora has seen him a few times before. He is talking big money with boss Bana about parts for something. No one knows what it is but we know it is big money because no one is allowed to talk to him unless spoken to.”

“Huh.” That sounded suspicious to Rex. He couldn’t imagine why anyone would be so secretive about buying parts from a scrapyard, but presumably this Malos had his reasons. “He seems pretty shady. I hope he doesn’t get this place shut down.”

“Tora thinks that Bana does not care as long as he gets lots of money,” Tora said. “He will just move on to exploiting other workers and making huge profits. Cannot get rid of big money Nopon like Bana.”

“I think you’re probably right there, mate.” Rex sighed, then cursed under his breath as he pricked his finger on a sharp lump of metal. “Ow. Maybe if this place got shut down, I could get a job with less risk of catching tetanus.”

“Rex-Rex could become bodyguard!” Tora said, suddenly getting quite excited. “He could join squad in Garfont and become world famous!”

“Tora, I can’t fight,” he said. “I don’t know how to do any of that stuff.”

“Rex-Rex needs cybernetic implants. Tora knows they would help him fight!”

“I’m not a millionaire,” Rex said, rolling his eyes. The implants Tora was talking about were a trend that had popped up about ten years ago and had swiftly been brought under the control of Indol. Apparently they were miracles if you wanted to fight well. Rex thought they were a load of rubbish.

“You don’t need to be a millionaire to get implants,” Tora said, and Rex nearly just immediately shushed him. You couldn’t just talk like that in public. You could probably get arrested for saying something like that.

“Tora, you can’t say stuff like that,” he said, and Tora just nodded with a rather sad look on his face. Tora loved tech even more than Rex did, but he had no money, same as Rex did. He was, however, a lot more willing to do outrageous things to learn more. Like, apparently, seriously considering going through illegal gangs to try out some implants.

“But Torna is-”

“Shush!” Rex threw a chunk of computer circuitry at Tora; it bounced off his very round body and clattered onto the floor. Another duo working a few metres away gave them an odd look. “You really can’t say stuff like that. Torna might be cheap but it’s not worth it. You’ll probably get arrested, or it’ll go wrong and you’ll die.”

“Tora knows that! Tora knows!” Tora started jumping up and down and generally making a big fuss. Ugh, this conversation needed to end soon. Before one of them got arrested. Or both. Knowing his luck, he would probably be the one who got arrested.

“Stop that!” Rex tried to grab onto Tora and keep him down, with little success. “Look- come on, stop, let’s just- let’s just change the subject. Um- how’s Poppi coming along?” Poppi was the name of Tora’s pet project- some kind of slightly disturbing AI that Rex didn't entirely approve of, but that was dead certain to stop Tora’s Torna panic.

“Poppi is coming along well!” Tora said, almost immediately returning to his work. “She is not ready to be powered up yet, but code is coming along well and Tora thinks she will be ready soon. Not sure how soon, though.”

“Nice. Are you gonna bring her to work when she’s done? That’d be pretty cool.” Honestly, Rex had very little interest in seeing Poppi. From Tora’s sketches that he’d shown Rex, she seemed alarmingly like some sort of creepy robot girlfriend.

“Poppi can only be run on big computer!” Tora said. “Drawings are just imagination of how Tora see Poppi if she was real person. Tora would never have parts to do full real Poppi, but drawings help visualise her personality.”

“Okay…” That really wasn’t any less weird in Rex’s eyes, but he wasn’t going to judge. Much. Each to their own, he supposed. He went back to sorting scrap, emptying a large bag of computer parts into a crate and wincing as a dead rat fell out. Honestly, where did people get all of this shit?

After about half an hour of doing absolutely nothing except sorting through inane junk, Tora squeaked. “Mind if I speak to you for a moment?” Someone said, and Rex whirled round to see the man who had pushed past him earlier. “Bana recommended I speak to an employee.”

“Uhh, yeah, sure.” Rex brushed the mud off his hands and tried to look at least vaguely presentable, stepping away from the piles of scrap. On the off-chance that this man was important enough to get him fired, Rex didn't want to accidentally cover him in filth. “What d’you need to talk about?”

“I wanted to know the sorts of things you manage to find here,” he said. “I’m not talking about run of the mill computer shit though.”

“What do you mean, then?” He asked.

“Proper tech,” he said. He had a really intense common tongue accent that was slightly grating, but Rex wasn’t going to tell him that, because he was also terrifying. “Old stuff. Salvaged stuff.”

“Uhh…” Rex really wasn’t sure he should be giving away these sorts of details to a man like Malos. Then again, he wasn’t sure he had much choice. “Sometimes salvagers dump all the junk they can’t sell here. There’s a bunch of really old tech, most of it’s pretty rusty though.” The salvaged tech was always inexplicably strange, and neither Rex nor Tora had ever been able to figure out what any of it was supposed to do.

“Interesting,” he said. “Just to check Bana isn’t lying. Does your scrapyard employ any salvagers to actually go and find stuff for you?”

“Nope,” he said. “Salvagers have better rights than us. They’re also usually freelance or at least in some kind of real guild.”

“I see,” he said. “Thank you for your time, Rex.”

“No problem…” Rex turned away to get back to sorting scrap, glancing at the guy over his shoulder as he walked. Something about Malos made him extremely uneasy, but it was probably just paranoia. He was more than likely just another rich guy looking to make some money off the scrapyard. “Weird,” he said with a shrug.

“Man is very scary,” Tora agreed. “Would not want to be around him if he got shouty-shouty. Tora think that he has lots of money though, or Bana would not take time to talk to him.” Rex nodded in agreement. Bana was only in anything for the money.

“Hope I didn't just say anything I shouldn’t’ve said. Honestly, that Malos guy is suspicious.” Rex didn't want to look back and see him again, he he just absorbed himself in his work again. With any luck, he would never have to encounter Malos- or anyone like that- here again.


	7. Torna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rex finds out who Malos is.

That evening, Brighid made them all dinner again. This time it was crab sticks, something else she said was from Mor Ardain. When that was all done and they were all sat down, Pyra asked how everyone’s day had been. Rex figured he had a pretty good story to tell- creepy scrapyard guy was at least vaguely interesting.

“Some weird rich guy was hanging around at the scrapyard today,” he said. “I think his name was Malos? He wanted to know if we were collecting old salvaged tech…” 

On the other side of the table, Nia choked on a mouthful of food, launching into a coughing fit. Well, then. Rex hadn’t expected his story to have quite that much of an effect. “Uh...you okay over there?”

“Yeah, I-I thought I knew the name. Did ya try looking him up or anything?” Nia looked...distraught. Rex didn’t know what her connection to that guy was, but it certainly wasn’t just that she thought she knew the name. It sounded serious.

“Um, no. I figured he was just some rich guy…” Rex dug his phone out of his pocket, ignoring the ‘phones at the table aren’t polite’ look that Mòrag gave him. Nia still looked distinctly worried, although she was trying now to hide it. Rex typed in Malos’ name, hitting the ‘search’ button. “Oh, shit.”

Everyone was looking now, and Mythra snatched his phone away from him and read from the screen. “Oh woah. Okay. Is this the guy who was at the scrapyard?”

“What is it?” Mòrag asked.

“Malos is from Torna,” Nia said. “As in, that Torna.”

“Why is Bana working with Torna?” Shocked by this new revelation, Rex had practically forgotten about his food, worry twisting his stomach into knots instead. He didn’t want to associate himself with Torna in any way, and working for a company who was helping them was basically just as bad as helping them directly. “Nia- how did you know who Malos was?”

“I follow these things, okay?” She said. “My sister was sick when I was little and we appealed to Indol for cybernetic help. Didn’t get it. So I know the politics around all that. Malos is a despicable human being.”

“Oh.” Rex took his phone back from Mythra and set it on the table, leaning back in his chair. “Well, that’s just great.” Finding out he’d actually spoken to a member of Torna was not how he had expected this day to go at all. “Should I, uh...should I do anything? Am I meant to report this or something?”

“If you’re not going to, I will,” Brighid said immediately. “Those kinds of people are dangerous and if we know where they are or what they’re doing...we should do something about it immediately.”

“I think you’d better do it, I wouldn’t know what to say. I’d probably make myself sound so bad they’d end up arresting me instead of him.” Maybe now wasn’t the best time for making jokes about the situation, Rex mused, looking over at Nia. She still looked distinctly uncomfortable.

“If you don’t report it, it implicates you,” Mòrag said. “I would recommend you report it, seeing as you were the one who saw him and spoke to him. You also have the most information about his motives and who to talk to when the police will try to find him.”

“Alright…” Rex pushed his chair back, ready to leave the table. Almost at the same time, Nia did the exact same thing. Before Rex could stand up, she did, hurrying away from the table. He got up as well, glancing after her. “Sorry for ruining dinner a bit. I swear it’s really nice, Brighid. I just...should probably go think about what to say.” And check on Nia.

“It’s alright,” she said. “I understand. You didn’t know what was going to happen when you mentioned that, and really it’s a good job you did. This would have been going on for longer unchecked if you didn’t know.”

“Yeah…” Rex hurried off upstairs, pausing outside Nia’s door instead of entering his own room. She’d seemed pretty upset; it only seemed right to try and help, since he’d started all of this. He knocked softly. “Can I come in?”

“No,” she said.

“I’m really sorry if I said something wrong,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be insensitive. I just thought it was a bit weird that this guy had showed up and took an interest in a place where people generally don’t take any interest.”

“Not your fault.” Rex might be imagining it, but Nia sounded upset. Upset enough to be crying, which seemed pretty unlike her. 

“Alright… Uhh, if you want to talk to me, I’m just down the hall.” Rex backed off, shaking his head. Today had gotten a lot more complicated that he’d thought it would. He just saw a weird guy at work. And then the weird guy turned out to be a literal terrorist. And somehow this had upset one of his friends, but he didn’t actually know why she was upset.

He felt bad about not washing his plate up after eating, but he’d told Nia he’d be down the hall if she needed something so he was going to stay in his room for at least a bit. Even if it pissed someone off, he’d just do all the dishes another time. Pyra didn’t come and join him, and no one else came to talk to him, so Rex supposed that they were all just leaving him and Nia alone for a while. It seemed to be a good time to make a start on how he was going to report this, so Rex pulled out his phone to take some notes.

‘Tall man with dark hair came to work (Argentum Scrap Heap). Pushed me out of the way. Spoke to coworker who said his name was Malos, didn’t think anything of it. Said that he was meeting with Bana (head of scrap heap and a cross-Alrest firm). Later, man came up to me and asked me:  
1 - what we sort through  
2 - if we have stuff that’s been salvaged  
3 - if we employ salvagers (with ref to talking to Bana)  
He thanked me for time and then left. Mentioned to housemates later and found out he was Malos from Torna.’

Rex had...no idea if that was good enough, or if it was even enough evidence to say that it was actually that Malos. He didn’t exactly have a picture of the guy at the scrapyard. But hey, it was all he could do. 

“Rex?” The sudden speech made him jump, and Rex looked up to see Nia standing in the doorway. She looked genuinely scared, so much so that it unnerved him.

“Yeah?” He tried his best to sound supportive and ready to listen, but he didn't know if he succeeded. He didn't know how he could do anything to help Nia, given how scared she looked. She always looked so...ready. For everything. And so sure of herself. This was the opposite of that, and it was scaring him too.

“I need to talk to you. I- I worked with Torna.”


	8. Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rex and Nia have a chat.

“What?” Rex stood up, pulling Nia into his room and shutting the door behind her. She looked grateful for that, and sunk down onto Pyra’s bed as if her knees would give out if she stayed standing a second longer. “What d’you mean? You aren’t still with them, are you?”

“No, of course not, never,” she said. She was visibly shaking, and Rex felt slightly sick. Why was she telling him this? “I would never in a million years go back to someone like Malos.”

“So...you worked with them?” He asked. “You didn’t have to tell me this.” He was sort of pleased that she had, but he didn’t know why she was trusting him with this information. They’d only known each other for a couple of days.

“I kind of did. If you report this thing and the police find out that I’m living with you, they’d tell you about me anyway. I’d rather you heard it straight from me.” Nia let out a shaky breath. “I never agreed with what they do, just so you know. I just...don’t exactly agree with Indol either.”

“I get it,” Rex said, even though she hadn’t actually explained it particularly well. “No worries, yeah? Well, you probably are worried. And I’m worried that I’m gonna lose my job. But no worries.”

“You’re an idiot,” Nia said with a laugh. “No worries. As if! This is exactly what I tried to move away from. The danger of being around them. But they’re still fucking in my life.”

“Well, Malos isn’t coming to the house,” Rex pointed out. “An’ if he did, Mòrag would probably knock his teeth out.” Nia looked doubtful, but still, the barest hint of a smile tugged at the corner of her lips. That was encouraging. “I bet Mòrag keeps knives under her pillow.”

Nia laughed, and Rex felt a weight lift from his chest. She was going to be fine, probably, and she looked and sounded a lot happier than before. “I think Brighid would protest.”

“Wait, why?” He asked. “It’s not her pillow.”

Nia looked at him for a moment and then let out another peal of laughter. “They share a bed, Rex. It’s totally her pillow, and her problem.”

“What? Why would they share a-” He paused, thinking about it. “Oh. Ohh.” 

Nia burst out laughing, covering her face with her hands. “Rex, you cannot be serious. You didn’t notice that they were together? They were holding hands under the dinner table earlier. They couldn’t be more obvious if they tried.”

“I didn’t know!” He protested. “I had no idea. I thought they were, y’know, just friends. And that they knew each other really well.”

“You are hopeless,” she said. “Utterly hopeless. I cannot believe you, you are so straight holy shit. How did you not notice the like...they’re basically an ultimate lesbian power couple, how in Alrest did you not notice?”

“I just didn’t,” Rex said defensively. “They never kissed in front of me or anything, so… And hey, what you mean ‘I’m so straight’. Aren’t you?”

Nia laughed again. Well, at least she was finding some amusement in tormenting him. Better than her freaking out about Torna. “Why would I be?” She asked, and then she winked at him. Architect, this was so confusing. “I can’t believe you didn’t realise that they were together. I’m gonna tell Pyra.”

“What? Why?” The last thing Rex needed was Pyra laughing at him as well. “Wait- is she gay too?”

Nia snorted. “No, don’t worry, you can keep having your little crush on her. Yes, I know about that. I think we all do, except her. You two’d be cute together, you’re both equally oblivious.”

“Stop talking!” He said, blocking his ears quickly. “Don’t say anything. It’s too embarrassing, I had no idea I was being obvious. Oh Architect what if she knows? Does she know and I’ve been sharing a room with her for the last couple days? Does she think I’m weird?”

“I’d say she doesn’t know,” Nia said. “She’d probably be even more blushy around you if she knew.”

“Even more? You mean she already is?” Just how oblivious had he been? Apparently whilst he’d been getting on with his own life, everyone else in this house had somehow managed to figure out everything about both him and Pyra. Or maybe Nia was just particularly observant. He hoped that was it. 

“No girl would agree to share a room with a boy she didn’t like,” Nia said. “Trust me. I never would have shared a room with you when I met you and I don’t like you enough to put up with your scrapheap smell even now.”

“She didn’t know about the scrapyard smell when we got here though,” he said. Not that saying that really changed anything in this conversation, but he felt like he had to qualify that.

“Well she knows now, and she hasn’t asked to share with Mythra yet, so you’re probably good.” Nia seemed very sure about all of this, but Rex wasn’t quite so convinced. He wouldn’t make a move on Pyra until he was absolutely certain that his feelings wouldn’t be laughed at or rejected. 

“I’m not convinced,” Rex said with a shrug, “so I’m going to drastically change the subject. Are you gonna tell the others about your involvement with Torna? Would the police tell them too?”

The smile faded from Nia’s face again, and she let out a huff. “Honestly? I’d rather everyone didn’t know. I only joined them to try and help my sister, but if it gets out that I was in Torna, no one’s going to think of me as a good person anymore.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” he said. “I don’t think you’re a bad person, and you told me. Also, you’re pretty obviously against them. Unless you murdered babies or something, I don’t think people will hate you. It’s now that counts.”

“I didn’t murder any babies,” Nia said, rolling her eyes. “But thanks. I appreciate it, really- having someone on my side.” She still looked tense, but at least she wasn’t shaking anymore. “I’m glad you don’t suddenly hate me. Lots of people in your situation would, and I wouldn’t blame them.”

“People at work are pretty lax about Torna,” Rex said with a shrug. “It’s not that anyone supports them, but when you work such a shit job and half of Indol lives in luxury with loads of living space, you can’t help but sympathise with resisting them. Uh...don’t tell anyone I said that.”

“It’s okay, I know you aren’t planning to run away and join them.” Nia smiled slightly. “At least, I don’t think you are. Doesn’t really seem your style, running away to join Torna. You’re too… I don’t know, honest.” 

Rex sort of snorted, but she was probably right. Unless he had a really good reason, he hated doing stuff that was against the law. He had people who cared about him and there were kids at home who looked up to him. He didn’t want to let them down, and if he lied and hurt others, he’d be setting a really bad example.

There was a bit of an awkward silence after that, which was broken by Gramps waking up from his nap and immediately hissing at...something. Rex had long since gotten used to his strange quirks.

“You have a weird cat,” Nia pointed out. Rex just nodded and reached over to pet him on the head.

“Love ‘im though,” he said. “He’s good for company. Not that I need it anymore, but moving to a city in a different titan on your own is really lonely.”

“It is,” Nia said, a sort of thoughtful look on her face. “I was lonely too, but I’m not anymore.”

“Glad I could help with that,” Rex said with a grin. “Thanks. For telling me about the Torna stuff. I...should probably get on with sending that report to the police. Mòrag’ll moan at me if I don’t have it done by the next time she sees me. Honestly, she acts like our mum sometimes.”

“I’ve always wanted gay mums,” Nia said with a short laugh. “Thanks for being accepting and stuff. It means a lot.”

“No problem,” he said. “We’re friends, right? Friends accept each other and help each other out.”

“Yeah, we’re friends,” she said, and all Rex could do was grin at her. This whole thing was so much more than he’d ever expected. But, mostly in a good way, and that was what mattered.


	9. Encounter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rex has a rather awkward encounter in the kitchen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I FINISHED XENOBLADE 2

The next morning, Rex found himself awake earlier than usual. Maybe it was nerves over this whole Torna thing, but he couldn’t make himself get back to sleep. So, he did the only logical thing- got up and went to make himself a coffee. However, upon reaching the kitchen, he was mildly surprised to find that he wasn’t the first one awake. 

Mòrag and Brighid were in the kitchen, and for a moment Rex was frozen in the doorway. It was half six in the morning, why were Mòrag and Brighid making out in the kitchen? He didn’t know what to do. He’d...never seen two girls making out before. He was slightly intimidated because if he moved or if they saw him or anything, Mòrag would probably disembowel him.

After a few moments of awkwardly standing in the doorway, Rex coughed as politely as he could. Mòrag immediately broke away, struggling to get out from where Brighid had had her pressed against the counter.

“How long have you been standing there? Having fun, were you?”

"N-no, I- sorry. I just didn't know what to do, y'know?" Rex felt like he was blushing and possibly melting from the embarrassment of this. "I - I came down to get a coffee. Sorry. I didn't want to interrupt...anything."

"Don't bite the poor boy's head off, Mòrag." Brighid stepped forwards and gently took her arm, and Rex breathed a sigh of relief. He'd keep his life for another day, then. He wondered if Mòrag and Brighid had been doing this sort of thing for long, and he just hadn't noticed any of it.

"Do not breathe a word of this to anyone," Mòrag said firmly.

"I already knew," Rex said. At Mòrag's faint look of anger and disbelief, he decided to elaborate so he could keep his life. "Nia told me. She said it was obvious and that you were holding hands at dinner. I hadn't noticed."

"Mòrag, love, I think everyone else in this house has noticed we're together. They just haven't mentioned it because they're scared of you." Brighid rested her hands on Mòrag's shoulders and kissed her on the tip of her nose. It was odd to Rex that any couple with Mòrag in it could look cute, but these two managed it.

"I'm not scary," Mòrag said, and then she looked over at Rex and snorted. He imagined he looked pretty scared right now.

"You are definitely scary," Brighid said, and Rex nodded when Mòrag wasn't looking in his direction anymore. "I've never seen a man look so terrified as Rex looked a few moments ago."

Rex tried not to look offended. Surely he hadn't looked THAT bad, had he? Apparently he had, according to Brighid. "It's early," he said in his defence. "I'm tired."

"In that case, why don't we get Mòrag to make you some coffee? It can serve as her apology for scaring you..."

"No, I'm okay!" He said. He was pretty sure Mòrag would slip poison into his coffee to keep him silent or whatever. "I'm kinda weird about coffee anyway, I like it in my own way. Don't worry about it. I'm sorry for walking in on you, so we can call it even, right?"

Mòrag looked initially relieved, then distinctly defensive. She narrowed her eyes, leaning in to stare Rex down. He backed off without even bothering to try and out-glare her. It would be like trying to out-glare the sun. "It's even. You don't tell anyone we kissed here, I don't tell anyone about your look of sheer terror."

"I'm not-" Rex cut himself off before he lied blatantly and pretended he wasn't scared of her. Because he actually was, even though he'd seen another side to her the other night. "Are you actually keeping it secret? Why?"

“None of your business,” Mòrag said with a huff. 

“She’s a very private person,” Brighid chimed in. “I don’t think she minds that anyone in this house knows, but I know she’d rather you didn’t spread it around. I’m sure she meant to ask you nicely, but at least two-thirds of her conversation with anyone other than me is conducted through thinly veiled threats of violence.”

“Thinly veiled?” Rex asked, quickly darting away from where the two of them were standing so he could make his coffee without being killed. “Are there some I’ve been missing?”

“Probably,” Brighid said, and Mòrag made an indignant sound. “Mòrag does politics, everything she says is a threat or a bargain of some kind.”

“You can be awfully rude sometimes, considering you’re supposed to be my girlfriend.” Mòrag didn’t sound especially annoyed about it, though. In fact, she founded fond. Rex wondered how he hadn’t known they were dating. And he dreaded to think how he would have reacted to what he’d seen earlier if Nia hadn’t told him about their relationship yesterday.

“Someone has to maintain the size of your ego,” Brighid said. Architect, she sounded fond. Rex almost felt like he was intruding on an intimate moment, what with how close they were standing right now. He occupied himself with making coffee, very studiously avoiding looking at anything but the countertop when he started hearing kissing noises again. Did the kettle usually take this long to boil? He could have sworn it was twice this fast yesterday. 

Oh Architect why were they kissing? They knew he was here. He’d already walked in on them. Brighid had just said that Mòrag didn’t like being public about it. So why were they making out when he was right here? He’d been talking to them not even a whole minute ago. This was so awkward and he wanted to sink through the floor.

As soon as the kettle boiled, Rex didn’t hesitate to pour some water into his cup, dump in some coffee and sugar, and make a hasty exit. No milk, but he could survive one day without it as long as he didn’t interrupt Mòrag and Brighid. Let them do their thing, preferably as far away from him as possible.

He hurried up the stairs, hoping he wouldn’t spill coffee on himself but also hoping that Brighid and Mòrag didn’t hear him, and managed to make it back to his room without further thoroughly embarrassing mishap. That was so bad. When he got into his room, very slightly breathless and very red, Pyra was awake. Oh great, now he’d have to explain.

She frowned, glancing up and down at him. Her hair was a mess and she still looked half asleep, so clearly she hadn’t been awake very long. “...What happened to you? You didn’t see someone naked in the shower, did you?”

“N-no!” He said. It felt like it was worse than that, honestly. That was one person. This was two people. Making out. In the kitchen. “I- Mòrag and Brighid are making out in the kitchen. I only wanted a coffee and now I’m in fear of my life I think.”

“Seriously?” Pyra laughed, and Rex felt a little of his embarrassment melt away in favour of the usual intense stomach butterflies that Pyra gave him. “Poor you. I never thought they’d be the sort to do things like that in public… I suppose it’s pretty early, though.”

“Wait, did you know too?” He asked, slightly disbelieving. Was he the only person who didn’t know about this at this point? Had everyone else seen it before him and he just looked like a fool? “I didn’t know until Nia told me…”

“Really?” Pyra laughed. “They’re pretty obvious about it. Have you just not been around many girls who are dating girls? Mythra keeps bringing girls home, and boys, so I’m pretty used to what it looks like when someone’s in a relationship.”

“I mean, I grew up around people who were dating other people, but I guess I just didn’t pick up on it?” It seemed pretty obvious now he thought about it, now he knew, but beforehand he just hadn’t seen what was going on. He felt a bit dense, honestly. “Didn’t get many girls dating girls on such a tiny island though.”

“Mhm.” Pyra nodded knowingly. “I grew up in a pretty small place too, but my family is rich enough that Mythra could afford to go wandering off all over the place. I think I’ve seen her more in the past week or two than I have in the entire time since she turned 16. She just sort of ran off and left me to deal with everything.” She paused. “...Sorry for unloading that on you. I do love her, promise.”

“I mean, she’s your twin,” he said. “It would be sort of hard not to love her. I have a bunch of sort of siblings and I love them all. It was always a lot of pressure to be a good example to the little ones, though.”

“Sort of?” She asked.

“Yeah, I grew up in an orphanage, so I didn’t have any biological relatives, just a bunch of kids who all had no parents.”

“I guess we’re both getting personal with each other this morning. Maybe we’re both sleep deprived, and that’s why we’re oversharing.” Pyra laughed, leaning in a little closer to Rex. “I kind of want to ask what happened to your parents, but I’m scared that you’re going to say they were murdered or something…”

“No idea,” he said with a shrug. “Well, I have a small idea. They probably came from somewhere else in Leftheria, but we don’t know where, and for whatever reason they had to leave that place, and when travelling they ran into some kind of difficulty, maybe lack of supplies, maybe they were attacked, I don’t know. But my father didn’t make it and my mother died pretty soon after arriving.”

“Oh…” Pyra reached out, resting a hand on his arm. Rex tried not to accidentally spill his coffee on her. “I’m sorry. That sounds awful. We...we’ve had pretty different lives, haven’t we? I thought having Mythra as a sister was bad, but you didn’t have a family at all. Or- not a biological family, anyway. I feel bad for complaining now…”

“Nah, you can complain,” he said. “I used to complain about my adopted siblings all the time. But I guess I kinda miss them now I’m away from them.”

“I missed Mythra when she was gone,” Pyra said. “But I was still really angry at her, actually. I felt it was unfair that she was off everywhere, meeting everyone under the sun, yet we still ended up in the same place in the end.”

“Maybe it’s your turn now. You can go off and explore just as much as she can. As long as you don’t miss any lectures, I suppose.” That got a small smile out of Pyra, and then, to Rex’s surprise, she shifted over and rested her head on his shoulder. His heart probably stopped for at least two seconds.

“You’re sweet, Rex. I’m not really sure I’m the exploring type, though. At the moment, I’m just-” She paused to yawn. “I’m just tired.”

Rex’s heart nearly exploded in his chest. Why did Pyra have to be so perfect? She was pretty, and genuine and kind and clever and she seemed to have every trait ever. It was almost infuriating, how lovely she was. “You’re really pretty, you know that?” Frick. He said that out loud.

After a few seconds of no reaction, Rex turned his head, half expecting to be met with a look of disgust. No- instead, he was greeted with Pyra’s sleeping face, soft smile and all. How did she manage to be cute even when she wasn’t awake? It just wasn’t fair. But maybe this was for the best. Rex figured that random compliments blurted out of nowhere probably weren’t the best way to start the ‘I really like you’ discussion. He would just let Pyra sleep for now, and finish his coffee, and find out what else he could manage to do without moving from this one spot. Because he really, really didn’t want this moment to end.


	10. Baking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rex walks into the kitchen to find something else interesting.

“You guys are terrible at this.” 

That was the comment that Rex overheard as he was walking by the kitchen. That, and a sudden fit of giggles from at least two people. Mòrag and Brighid didn’t seem the giggling types, so that meant that whoever was in the kitchen was some combination of Pyra, Mythra, and Nia. It was probably safe to go and investigate, so he did.

The sight that met his eyes was...not what he had expected at all. There was flour everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. He was pretty sure every single surface in the room was covered in flour, including Gramps, who was perched on a chair. Poor guy looked traumatised. “Uhh, what’s going on?” He asked. “Why are you torturing my poor cat?”

“We’re not doing it intentionally.” Pyra sighed. “I was trying to teach Nia and my sister how to make chocolate brownies. They are terrible students…” She cast a resentful look at the two of them, who were still smirking. Mythra had a smudge of chocolate on her nose- it looked suspiciously like Nia had put it there.

“She’s trying to lick my nose!” Mythra said, jumping away as Nia approached her. They both had huge grins on their faces and Rex couldn’t help but grin back at them. Their smiles were infectious. “Save me, oh sister of mine, before I perish!”

“Perish faster.” Pyra folded her arms, looking mightily unimpressed. That was, until Nia managed to catch Mythra and actually did lick the chocolate off of her nose. Then, Pyra cracked a smile. Just a small one, but a smile nonetheless. “There. Now you’re dead, can we get on with baking?” 

Mythra made a sudden dramatic coughing choking sound and fell to her knees. “Pyra...you’ve killed me...and I never got to tell everyone-” she coughed again, “-how gay I am.”

“Mythra, you’re bi,” Pyra said with crossed arms. “You’re worrying Azurda.” She was right. Gramps had come down from his chair, tail high in the air, and he was curiously watching Mythra as she slumped fully down onto the floor. 

“He’s a cat, he doesn’t worry about anyone. You’re just trying to figure out the best place to start eating my dead body from, aren’t you, kitty?” Mythra sat up and reached out to pet Azurda, and he jumped away and hissed at her. Nia snorted.

“If you’re gonna befriend a cat, you’ve gotta be more subtle about it than that. They’re smart creatures, y’know?” Nia bent down too, and this time Gramps conceded to having his head scratched.

“Cat whisperer,” Mythra said. “Also Pyra you’re still wounding me. You didn’t even say sorry for letting Nia literally murder me just now.”

“That’s not the correct use of literally,” Pyra said, offering Mythra a hand. Mythra pointedly and deliberately turned her nose up at it. “Come on, it’s baking time. Or I’ll eat all the brownies myself.”

“Oh, fine.” Mythra stood up without taking Pyra’s hand, wandering over to Nia, who was in the process of dipping her finger into a bowl of brownie mix and licking it off. “Hey. How come Pyra doesn’t tell you off for messing around?” 

“Because she’s not my sister,” Pyra said with a huff. “Can one of you two finish stirring that? Rex, why don’t you break some eggs for me? You may as well help now that you’re here…”

“Break the eggs on her shoes, Rex,” Mythra said, and Rex quickly grabbed a cup and moved the breaking of his eggs very very far away from the edge of the counter where it could even be interpreted as him trying to break eggs on her shoes. “You’re such a spoilsport.”

“He’s not a spoilsport. He’s a very nice person, unlike you two, apparently.” Pyra rested a defensive hand on Rex’s shoulder. Rex almost dropped an egg. 

“Aww. You two are so cute together,” Mythra said, sounding extremely sarcastic. “You go and be innocent in a corner somewhere, Nia and I will be having some real fun.”

“This kitchen has seen enough making out,” Rex said, before realising that he wasn’t meant to talk about that because Mòrag had asked him not to. Whoops.

“It can see some more, maybe,” Nia said, and she winked at Mythra, who...blushed? Mythra being embarrassed was something Rex had to see more of, but he also didn’t want to be part of this exchange for any longer and he didn’t want Mythra to think he was staring at her.

“I really do not want to think about my sister kissing Nia,” Pyra muttered to him. “I’m starting to think that this baking thing wasn’t a very good idea. Luckily we’re almost done…” Before Mythra and Nia could flirt any more aggressively, Pyra grabbed Rex’s cup of eggs and emptied it into the chocolate mixture. “Mix that, and we can bake the brownies. I’d ask one of you to grease the baking tin, but I’m sure you’d find a way to set it on fire.” 

“Says the girl named Pyra,” Mythra pointed out. “If anyone’s born to set stuff on fire, it’s you.” 

“And with a name like that you’re born to do great things that go down in mythology,” Pyra said, “but it hasn’t happened yet and I don’t think your baking will do it.”

“You’re so cruel,” Mythra said.

“Only for you,” Pyra said, a bright smile on her face. She was right, Rex had never seen her snark someone as much as she snarked Mythra. Pyra was normally the definition of an angel.

“Hey Pyra,” Nia said, and Rex could hear the laugh in her voice already. He was slightly judging her and he was more than a bit afraid at how awful this was going to be. “That was...a pretty...sick burn.” She started giggling.

Pyra turned around, giving Nia the sort of look that made flowers wilt and bugs die in mid air. Nia didn’t even stop her giggling, and Mythra joined in barely a moment later. Pyra turned back to Rex, her acidic look turning a little more helpless. “Please help me get these two out of the kitchen. Can I trust you to help me finish baking?”

“I can try,” he said. Honestly, the idea of doing a vaguely domestic and fun task with Pyra just made him die internally of happiness. He really wanted to do this. Like really, really wanted to do it. But he didn’t want to look too keen and confident and then look like a fool. “Bet I can do it.” And there he went, putting his foot in his mouth. Pyra didn’t seem to mind, though- she just smiled, patting him on the arm again and then moving away to shepherd Nia and Mythra out of the kitchen. It wasn’t a hard task, seeing as they were still laughing.

“Those two are definitely flirting with each other,” Pyra grumbled when she got back into the kitchen. “Ugh…”

“Think of it this way, they could be at each other’s throats,” Rex said with a shrug. Then again, he wasn’t sure if their flirting was much better, seeing as it put them at risk of having two couples in the house with a very scary member who could definitely kill him if they wanted to. What if the two couples teamed up to be ultra scary? 

“I don’t know, maybe that would be better. Everyone in this house is all coupled up, if you count Zeke and Pandoria. They’re such close friends that they basically count as a couple. And that just leaves us, on our own.” Pyra turned her attention to the brownie mixture- convenient timing, as Rex could feel that the tips of his ears were heating up to a lovely shade of beetroot red.

“I mean I guess you could say- I mean, uh- I don’t mean it like that!” Rex’s hands were shaking. This was totally his chance, but he didn’t know what to say or even if he should say. He didn’t want to ruin this. “I mean, we share a room, that’s kinda pairing up?” His voice trailed off into a squeak at the end.

“I suppose.” Pyra still had her back to him- she was pouring the brownie mixture into a pan, and Rex might have imagined it, but she seemed to be sounding as nervous as he did. Was that good? Or was she just scared of him? It was impossible to tell. “I think this is done now. It’ll be done in about forty minutes, so come back then and I’ll let you taste the first one. You were a lot better at helping than Mythra and Nia.”

“Um-thanks. For letting me help. I’ll just...go now.” 

“Yeah.” Pyra’s response came much too fast. Rex wondered if he should stay, if he should at least say something about his feelings, but his feet were already walking him out of the door. This was hopeless. He was hopeless. Why was he like this? He shouldn’t be so scared, but he was, and it was infuriating. He really liked Pyra, but...he just didn’t know how to tell her.


	11. Message

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone stops Rex on his way home from work to ask him to pass on a message.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mild spoilers for Ch6 of Xenoblade 2 :)

Rex was used to getting called out at strange times for work, but 10pm had to be a new record for the most awkward time. Who dumped so much rubbish at 10pm that people had to come in urgently to deal with it? Nevertheless, he couldn’t really complain, this was his only way of getting money.

He was utterly exhausted by the time he’d even reached the scrap yard, and then he had a several hour shift to deal with. Sifting through rubbish during winter under floodlights at midnight was not his favourite activity and it didn’t feel quite real. It was almost deadly silent and by the time he’d gone through three very bitter coffees to try and keep himself awake during the shift, he felt like he was practically hallucinating. He wasn’t finished until two in the morning and he seriously considered calling a cab for the usually very short and easy journey, but he decided not to. That was a mistake.

He’d barely walked ten feet down the road when someone grabbed his arm. Someone very strong. Rex froze, praying that he wasn’t about to get mugged. Fonsa Myma was supposed to be a nice place, where things like this didn’t happen. Slowly, he turned around, finding himself face to face with a very pissed-off man in some sort of strange mask. Oh no.

“Walk with me for a moment,” he said. His voice was rough and it basically sounded like he was perpetually frowning. Rex was very, very afraid, and he didn’t think there was anything he could do. “I’m not going to hurt or mug you.”

“Okay.” His voice came out much higher than he wanted it to. Rex wished he had some sort of weapon on him- even a tiny little pocket knife, but no, he was totally unarmed. Shit. The stranger shifted his grip from Rex’s arm to his wrist, using it to pull him along the pavement off in some direction he’d never been before.

“My name is Jin,” he said. Rex was about to open his mouth and put himself in danger by sarcastically introducing himself to a very strong stranger who was sort of kidnapping him, but the man beat him to it. “You’re called Rex Adamis, and you’re from Fonsett Village in the Leftherian Archipelago. I know all about you, Mr. Adamis.”

“Please don’t hurt my family. Please.” Starting straight out with the begging probably wasn’t great, but Rex’s brain wasn’t exactly functioning at full capacity right now. He’d figured that this guy must be part of Torna, because he couldn’t think of any other dangerous criminal organisations that he’d managed to piss off lately. “I’ll- I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll tell the police I made it all up.”

“No point,” he said. “What is in motion is already in motion. If you say you were lying now, they’ll just know something is wrong. I have no interest in hurting you nor your family,” Rex noticed that he put a certain inflection on family that showed he knew already that his family weren’t actually related to him, “so long as you pass a message to Nia from me.”

“I’ll do it.” He really hoped this wasn’t a mistake. If his hometown was in danger, he couldn’t refuse anything Jin wanted from him. But at the same time, he didn’t want to hurt Nia. Her old life was behind her now, or so she’d said. Rex trusted her. He hoped that wasn’t a mistake, either.

“Tell her I know where she is,” he said, “and we don’t really care what she’s getting up to, but we’re going to keep tabs on her to make sure she’s both safe and not dangerous to us. But we want her to remember why she helped in the first place and remind her to stay true to that desire.”

“Right. I- I can do that.” Rex was a little worried now- he really didn’t want to be responsible for accidentally sending Nia back to join Torna. But hey, he didn’t see how he had much of a choice in the matter. Jin could probably kill him in at least fifty excruciating ways without the use of a weapon. “Please- can I go home now?”

“I’m taking you the long way to your house,” he said. “You’d just get lost if I let you go now.” Rex had not been expecting a member of Torna to be like this, honestly. While he was absolutely terrifying and he was pretty much pissing himself right now, he wasn’t torturing information out of him or anything.

“Could you at least let go of my arm?” Rex braced himself to get his wrist snapped or possibly just torn straight off of his body, but no- Jin let go, striding ahead by a couple of steps. Rex wasn’t stupid enough to try and run away. Hopefully Jin wasn’t leading him into some kind of elaborate murder trap.

“Nia is a good kid,” he said. “Her cat is a nightmare sometimes, though. And she really likes Cream Orange Paratha.” Okay, this was just surreal. Why was this terrorist telling him Nia’s favourite food? He honestly preferred it when the man was about to murder him.

“Uhh, okay. I’ll remember that if I ever need to buy her food. And the cat’s fine most of the time.” And now he was being just as bad. He was making small talk with a terrorist. This was probably all a dream, Some weird mixture of adrenaline and endorphins from the threat and then the relief of not being dead was starting to kick in, making him feel rather light headed.

They lapsed into an incredibly awkward silence. He was walking home with a terrorist at two in the morning and he was telling him that Nia liked orange flavoured flatbread. He absolutely hated his life. Why was it so bizarre? Why was it two in the morning, and why in Alrest did he drink so much coffee earlier?

On the corner of Rex’s street, Jin stopped, motioning for Rex to go on without him. “Go. I won’t shoot you in the back. I know Nia would see me out of her window if I came any further. You pass on that message, Rex. Or you know what’ll happen.” Jin smiled then, a grin so unnerving that Rex immediately went back on the maybe-not-so-bad opinion that he had formed of Jin.

Glancing back a few times, he headed to the door of the house, fumbling with his keys. God, it was early, and he was exhausted, and honestly he wanted to collapse and sleep right now. When he checked behind him after he’d unlocked and opened the door, Jin had already vanished into the darkness.

“Ugh, fuck…” Rex shut the door firmly behind him, and he was about to lean back against it when a figure suddenly sprung out of the darkness, closely followed by another. He damn near jumped out of his skin, only to stop, squint a little closer, and realise that it was Zeke and Pandoria. “What are you doing up? And did you have to jump at me like that?”

“It’s only half two,” Pandoria said. “Brighid mentioned you’d gone out so I suggested waiting up for you and having a hot drink for when you got home. Zeke had absolutely nothing to do with it and he definitely wasn’t concerned for your wellbeing.” Zeke nodded along with her words almost too enthusiastically.

“Aw, thanks for caring, guys,” he said. He took a nervous glance out of the window. Still nothing.

“What’cha looking at?” Pandoria leaned over, peering out of the window. “Ooh, did someone follow you home? Zeke should do a cool speech at them. Zeke’s good at cool speeches.” Zeke grinned proudly, and he looked as if he was about to launch into a speech, so Rex hastily cut him off.

“I- no. Sort of. It’s complicated, I really don’t think I should tell you guys.” He was pretty sure that it was just common sense at this point not to spread what he’d been told around. He didn’t want the others to know too much about what Nia had been doing in the past, after all, and he knew that Torna probably only knew about him because he’d blabbed about what he’d seen. By that logic, saying what had just happened would put everyone back home in danger.

“Oh, come on! If you’re in danger, Zeke will protect you. He can do that, you know.” Pandoria smiled at him, clasping her hands in front of her face like she was trying to be cute. Rex gave her a doubtful look. Zeke didn’t look capable of protecting a single egg, let alone a human. “Come on, Rex! Was it Torna?” He must have flinched at the name, because Pandoria’s eyes lit up immediately. “Ohh, it was!” 

“Keep your voice down,” he snapped. “Sorry- just- I don’t want the whole house to know, alright?”

“It’s okay, chum,” Zeke said. “You can tell us, and then we can work out what to do. Everyone else is probably asleep at this point.”

“Someone from Torna sort of kidnapped me,” he said. “He grabbed me and led me back here in a different direction. After I’d finished work, that was. And he told me that he knew who I was and what I’d done and where I was from and stuff. It was...terrifying, honestly.”

“Did he threaten you?” Zeke had shifted into a kind of dramatic whisper that was probably louder than his normal speaking voice. Rex hesitated. Clearly that was enough of an answer for Zeke. “No one threatens my friends and gets away unharmed! I am a prince, I will not stand for this injustice! Whoever hurt you will suffer, Rex. I can assure you of that.” 

Rex just blinked. He’d been expecting dramatics, but… “Did you say you were a prince?” 

“Mmm-hmm,” Pandoria said. “But that’s not really that important. What’s important is if he threatened you.”

“Not directly,” he said. “He said he wouldn’t shoot me, actually, just before I came to the door. But I was just checking to see if he was still there, because he vanished really quickly. Seriously, though- you’re a prince? Of where?” 

Zeke beamed proudly. “Tantal, my friend.” 

“Where?” Rex had never heard of it. He’d thought Leftheria was fairly remote, but obviously it had nothing compared to this place.

“Tantal,” he said. “The titan called Genbu?” Rex shook his head again and Zeke deflated in a very exaggerated sort of way. Rex could never tell if he was very emotional or if he was just overdramatic. “It’s almost as big as Uraya, I’d say. It’s a bit closed off, though, so maybe that’s why you’ve never heard of it.”

“Uh-huh…” Rex scratched the back of his neck a little awkwardly, hoping that he hadn’t managed to hurt Zeke’s feelings by accident. The last thing he needed was a mopey drama student on top of all of his other problems. “If you’re a prince...why are you here?”

“After a long journey full of peril and self discovery, I found myself hungering for a deeper understanding of the arts… I cared not for the prestige of the easy life but chose my own path, separate from the chill and isolation of monarchy.” Rex didn’t understand anything other than the separate words in that sentence, honestly.

“He liked drama too much, he wanted to see stuff, so his dad exiled him from Theosoir and he got some Indol dude to sponsor him to get a degree,” Pandoria translated.

“Right.” Rex folded his arms, glancing up the stairs. After the night he’d had, he wasn’t sure that he could take any more weird revelations. Zeke was a prince, Torna might kill his entire village if he didn’t do what they said… All in all, not the best night he’d ever had. “If him being a prince will get Torna to leave me alone, that’s great. If not...thanks for offering to help?”

“Oh I see,” Zeke said. “Well, if you feel safe, call it a night. However, if you wish to, please accept our offer of piping hot cocoa before you retire to your room.”

“I’m good,” he said. He’d already had way too much stuff to drink that’d help keep him up, and at this point he just wanted to be horizontal on a soft surface, even though he probably smelt like shit. “G’night, you two.” Rex was already halfway across the room when he heard Zeke and Pandoria call out ‘goodnight’ back to him. He’d never wanted to sleep so badly in his life.


	12. The Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rex gives the message from Jin to Nia.

It wasn’t until mid-afternoon the next day that Rex finally worked up the courage to pass on Jin’s message. Everyone else was out of the house at their classes, so there would at least be no one else around to see this if it ended horribly. Tentatively, he knocked on the door to Nia’s room. “Hey, Nia, can I come in?”

“Two seconds!” She called, and Rex heard the sound of something being moved in the room before the sound of Nia approaching the door. When she opened it, she looked a bit...harried. Ah. This wasn’t going to be the best time to talk about this, then, but he didn’t think he could back down now.

“Hey.” He stepped into the room, glancing around. Dromarch was perched atop a small chest of drawers, watching him warily. “I, uh… There’s something I need to tell you. You might wanna sit down, I dunno how you’re gonna take this.” Bad phrasing- Nia now looked extremely worried.

“What’s happened, Rex? Does someone else know about me and Torna? Did you tell someone?”

“No, I didn’t, I swear!” He said. “It’s just...when I was walking home from work last night, someone from Torna stopped me. He said his name was Jin.” Nia’s ears perked up instantly, and she actually looked less worried on finding out about that. “He asked me to pass a message on to you.”

“Jin was asking about me? He knows I’m here?” Rex nodded. He seemed to know exactly which room Nia was staying in, too- glancing out of the window, he could see that the corner of the street where Jin had stopped walking was obscured from view by a large red tree. “What’s the message?”

“He said, um…” Architect, it would be bad if he forgot what had been said now. “He knows where you are, and he kinda said that Torna were keeping an eye on you to make sure you’re safe, but also that you’re not going to cause trouble for them. And then he said that he wanted you to remember to stay true to why you joined Torna.”

“Makes sense.” Nia folded her arms, taking a seat on the edge of her bed. There was a slight frown on her face, and she seemed distant, focusing on a patch of carpet over by the door. “He didn’t say anything else?”

“Uh, he told me your favourite food and that your cat could be a nightmare. But- nothing important. You okay, Nia?” Nia had her eyes screwed shut and she wasn’t looking at him anymore.

“Y-yeah,” she said. Her voice was shaking and the only thing Rex wanted to do right then was hug her. This couldn’t be easy for her. Knowing that her past was still hunting her...he couldn’t really imagine how that felt. “What did he say was my favourite food?” She was clearly forcing a smile onto her face.

“Uh, Cream Orange Paratha.” Rex took a chance and sat down next to Nia on the bed. She didn’t move away, which seemed like a good sign. “He really seemed to care about you. Not- not that I’m saying you should go back to Torna. Really, really don’t do that. Was he right about your favourite food?”

Nia laughed. “Yeah, he was,” she said with a small sigh. “We used to make it together sometimes, actually. It might surprise you, but Torna wasn’t all murdering people to destabilise Alrest’s society. And no, idiot, I won’t go back. I would be happy to never go anywhere near Malos for the rest of my life.”

“Good.” Perhaps Rex replied a little too fast to that, but never mind. He quite liked Nia- not in the same way he liked Pyra, but as a friend. She was so down-to-earth, even with all of the mess in her past, it was a relief to talk to her when almost everyone else in this house was so strange. “I’d miss you, if you went back to Torna.”

“Good to hear,” she said, and she was smiling again. “I miss Jin though, I always wondered why he was even part of Torna. He hated fighting, yet he does it anyway, and he wouldn’t hurt a fly if he didn’t want to. He was probably the only person there who wasn’t a complete nutter.”

“He seemed...okay, I suppose. He threatened my village back in Leftheria if I didn’t pass the message on to you, though.”

Nia snorted. “Come on, Rex, he wouldn’t hurt your family and friends. Torna doesn’t care about your remote little village. Trust me.” Admittedly, that made him feel a little bit better. Not that Jin wasn’t still one of the scariest people he’d ever met, after Malos and Mòrag.

“How do you know that?” He asked. He needed to make sure. He didn’t want to be responsible for their suffering. Not now, not ever.

“Because they’re not on anyone’s radar,” she said. “They salvage stuff occasionally, but never enough to make it big because the whole area is just too poor. Indol doesn’t care about them, so Torna doesn’t care about them. That’s basically the sum of it.”

Rex felt like he ought to be mildly offended, but in all honesty, Nia was right. No one cared about the Leftherian Archipelago except the people who lived there, and even some of them didn’t seem to care that much. “Fair enough, I s’pose. Thanks. I feel a bit better now. Are you sure you’re okay, too? I should probably go feed Gramps, but if you need me around, that’s fine.”

“I’m sure I can trail after you while you feed your cat,” Nia said. “I still have his number, you know. It was stupid of me, but when I first left, I left my phone there so they couldn’t trace me or anything. But I remembered his number and saved it when I got a new phone. So I could contact him. I won’t, I just-”

“I get it,” Rex said, though he didn’t really understand. He wasn’t sure why Nia was telling him this- did she expect him to tell her not to contact him, or to shout at her? He hoped not. “Um- Gramps’ food is in my room.” He stood up, and Nia followed him. It seemed like she just needed company today. Understandable, really. 

Dromarch slunk down from his resting spot to join them as well, hovering in the doorway as Rex and Nia went to go feed Azurda. “If he tries to steal Gramps’ food, just kick him gently,” Nia said. “Gently, though. He’s tough but he’s not that tough.”

“I want my ankle to remain intact,” Rex said, “so I won’t hurt him.” Nia laughed, and Rex smiled at the sound. It was nice to hear her sounding happy, especially after everything that was happening. He knelt down to tip some food into Gramps’ bowl, and he came running in almost immediately from whatever he’d been doing. Dromarch slunk in as well, and Nia rolled her eyes and picked him up. 

“Rex, do you mind if I stay in your room for a bit? I’ll leave when Pyra gets home, promise, but I just-”

“Don’t wanna be alone,” Rex finished for her. “Yeah, that’s fine.” He smiled. “Anything for a friend.”

“Thanks,” she said. “It means a lot, even if I can’t exactly give you anything in return.”

“You don’t need to,” he said, intently watching Gramps to avoid looking directly at Nia. “I’m here for you, no matter what.”


	13. Arrest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rex has a bad day at work.

Work sucked even more than usual when it was raining. Rex had a coat, but it kept getting in the way of his boxes of scrap so he’d ended up taking it off. At least Tora had fur. That stuff seemed to be endlessly waterproof. They hadn’t talked much today- in weather like this, it was best to just get shit done as fast as possible.

Rain in Uraya was weird, too. It made a pretty sound when it started, like it wasn’t water but something else instead, but the high pitched clinking noise got annoying quickly and some of the rain was more like sleet, so it got everywhere and melted everywhere and it generally sucked.

“How many more crates of this stuff do we have left?” Rex had to shout to Tora over the rain- it was getting steadily worse. Ugh. Well- maybe on the plus side, he wouldn’t absolutely stink when he got home from work today.

“Nearly done!” He called. “Just two to go, and then we can go home!” Two wasn’t ‘nearly done’ in Rex’s books, but if Tora was content to dream, he’d let him. He just needed to get through this, and he’d get paid and be able to go home.

Of course, it was that moment that everything went to hell. With no warning, shouting started at the entrance to the scrapyard. Rex tensed, slowly placing the items he had on the ground. This really didn’t sound good.

“Everyone, put your hands in the air! Fonsa Myma Police Department!” What? Who had called the police here? And why? Not really wanting to get shot, Rex raised his hands in the air. Next to him, Tora was shaking a little. 

“Hey, Tora, you okay? I’m sure they’re not here for you. Or me.”

“What if we did something bad without knowing?” He asked. They both watched as the police started a sweep through the scrapyard, starting at the entrance and going through every lane of rubbish and tech systematically, pointing their guns at everyone they came across.

“Yeah, I don’t think so.” A few people were being arrested, a few others being led away, presumably for questioning- Rex still had no idea what was going on. A police officer appeared at the entrance of their lane, striding up and glancing down at Tora before meeting Rex’s gaze.

“Rex Adamis?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“You need to come with me, right now. I’m going to cuff you, but this is for your own safety, I assure you.” 

Rex looked at the man for a moment. He seemed deadly serious. “Um...what?” He held both his hands out in front of him on seeing the glare of the man and was immediately cuffed. Tora squeaked in fright. A few times, Tora had mentioned that he would protect Rex if anything happened to him. So much for that.

“You’re not under arrest,” the officer said in a low voice. “But with this operation being as big as it is, you need to be safe in police custody for a bit. You-” he pointed at Tora- “Don’t mention this to anyone, or you will find yourself in serious trouble. Tell anyone where Mr Adamis is, and you could put his life in danger.” 

Tora didn’t even have time to respond, and Rex could see him jumping up and down in distress as the officer led him away. “Do I get to know what’s going on here?”

“When you’re in the car,” he said. “We have some questions for you here as a worker who was privy to certain information about the clients of this scrapyard.” Here, his voice was slightly raised, and Rex honestly felt none the wiser. He didn’t know anything about who was doing what around here.

He was led to a police car and pushed into the back seat of it. The officer let himself into the front of the car, then twisted around in his seat to talk to Rex. “You’re the one who sent us information on Malos and the rest of Torna, yes?” He nodded. “Excellent. It’s thanks to you that we’re here today. Now- Torna aren’t the nicest of people, so you’re going to have to be in police custody for the next day or so, until we’re sure no one is after you.”

Rex didn’t know what to say there. What he should say was that Torna had already found him and knew everything about him and had threatened him, but he was pretty sure that would just put everyone in danger. He didn’t know if he should say it or not. He didn’t want to hurt Nia or his family or anyone he knew. So, he just nodded again, and hoped that it was the right decision to make. 

The car ride was long and silent after that, driving through the rainy streets into a part of town Rex hadn’t visited much before. He wished his hands weren’t cuffed; he wanted to text Pyra, or Nia, maybe even Mòrag. She would have him out of here in seconds, no doubt about that. Though, actually, being Ardainian she might just get arrested for no reason. He’d heard that Urayans did that sometimes.

“Am I going to be in a cell?” He asked. He didn’t fancy sleeping in a cell for his ‘own protection’ when Torna already knew where he was.

“Probably. Think of it this way, kid- it won’t be the most comfortable night you’ve ever had, but it’s a small locked room with a security camera. No one will be able to hurt you in there.” That was a good point, although Rex still wasn’t convinced that Torna was going to hurt him at all. Jin could have killed him the other night, but he hadn’t.

At the police station, Rex found himself being dragged out of the police car even more roughly than he’d been shoved in there. It was a short walk into the station and then into a cell- just as he’d been promised, a small locked room painted stark white except for some rude graffiti on the wall. Lovely. “You’ll be here for twenty four hours, max, and then we’ll find someone to pick you up. Okay?”

“I have housemates,” he said. “I don’t know if anyone has a car, though. Students and all.”

“Does the house have a landline?” The officer asked, moving behind him to get the handcuffs off. “We could call that and find out if anyone can collect you tomorrow afternoon.” Rex nodded, grabbing his phone out of his pocket and reading the number to the officer, who took it down. “We’ll have to take that, I’m afraid. For the sake of security and all that. We won’t look through it, that’s illegal.”

Rex sighed and handed his phone over. When the officer was gone, he sat on the bed and propped his back up against the wall. This was going to be a long night.


	14. Coming Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rex comes home to a very pleasant surprise.

Twenty five hours later, Rex was starting to get worried. Had he been forgotten about? The only human he’d seen had been the person who had dropped off his breakfast and lunch, and a weird slop that was probably supposed to be dinner. He’d been promised only a day of waiting, but it was hard not to count the hours when there was literally nothing else to do.

After nearly twenty six hours, he heard a voice he recognised, finally. Mòrag was coming down the corridor, talking very loudly. “I don’t see why it was so difficult to let me go with him. I am the most qualified person to protect him from the household, and the country of my origin should make no difference to that.” Of course. She’d probably been here for ages arguing with the entire Urayan police force and death-glaring anyone who dared try to lay a hand on her. 

He stood up as his door was unlocked, a grin splitting his face as he saw Mòrag. He couldn’t quite believe that he was so happy to see her, but she was the first familiar human he’d seen in a whole day. A few more hours of white walls, and he might have gone insane. “Hi Mòrag,” he said, trying to sound cheerful. Mostly he was just relieved.

“You got yourself arrested,” she noted. “I never thought I’d be the one fetching someone out of imprisonment in Uraya.” She shot a glare at the officer standing in the door, who looked very uneasy. It was probably against all his principles to let an Ardainian waltz out of his prison with someone they’d previously had detained.

“I didn’t really get myself arrested, it’s...complicated.” Mòrag shot him a withering look, and Rex decided to shut up and just follow her out. He collected a plastic bag containing his phone on the way out, discovering when he turned it on that he had 10 missed calls from Pyra, Nia, Zeke, and Brighid. In addition to that, there was a plethora of worried texts, mostly from Pyra and Nia, both sets ending with a variation of ‘why did we just get a call saying you’re in prison?’. Nia’s text sounded a lot angrier than Pyra’s. Oops.

“I’m walking you home,” Mòrag said. “Why the police station has to be so far away from everything, I don’t have a clue. It seems one of us has to learn to drive if you’re going to make being arrested a habit.”

“I wasn’t arrested!” He protested. “They detained me for my own safety. Because I gave them the tip in the first place before they raided the scrapyard.”

“Oh. Well, I suppose I’m glad you’re not a criminal.” Mòrag sighed. “Pyra asked me twenty times if she could come with me to pick you up, you know. I said yes, but then she decided she was too nervous. That girl really is something…” 

Twenty times? Wow. Rex felt a little guilty- more than a little, honestly- about worrying her so much. “Sorry,” he tried, but Mòrag cut him off.

“Save that for when you see her, I don’t need your apology.” Point taken. Rex kept his mouth shut the rest of the way home, reflecting with each step how much he was looking forward to sleeping on a soft bed tonight. “Did you get paid last night?” She asked.

“Fuck,” he said. “Oh, fuck, I lost my job because of this stupid thing. I get paid before my shifts usually, but ugh. I don’t know how much I have saved. I don’t have a job. Shit.”

“Language,” Mòrag said, her tone still completely mild. “And don’t worry, losing your job is probably the least of your worries right now.” Rex didn’t have anything to say in response to that cheery thought. He sighed, shoving his hands in his pockets as they walked the last few blocks back home. Mòrag dug out her door key, and even as she unlocked the front door, Rex could hear people on the stairs.

“Rex!” Several people called his name at once, and suddenly he had an armful of Pyra and she was- she was- he was actually...she moved her face and looked into his eyes and then she kissed him. On the mouth. She was kissing him and he was kissing her and oh Architect they were in front of everyone but he didn’t really care.

It only lasted a few seconds before Rex broke away, finding everyone staring at them in various degrees of stunned silence. Zeke, Pandoria, and Nia were grinning, Brighid was just smiling slightly, Mòrag looked unaffected, and Mythra was scowling. He glanced back to Pyra, who still had her arms locked around his waist. He grinned. “Uh...hi.”

“I, um, I’m glad you’re okay,” she said. She had flushed bright red and it was utterly adorable. He was pretty sure he was besotted with her and she’d just…

“You just kissed me,” he said, probably grinning like a madman. She’d just kissed him. A pretty girl, no it was better, she wasn’t just any pretty girl. Pyra, who he’d had a crush on for weeks if not months, had just kissed him.

“I did.” She grinned too, and then she leaned in and kissed him again. Rex let this kiss last a little longer, but he was still very aware of the entire rest of their house watching them. Eventually Mythra cleared her throat rather loudly, and Rex reluctantly pulled away. “Sorry,” she said, but she really didn’t sound sorry.

“I’m a thug now,” he announced proudly to everyone else. “I spent the night in prison. It really sucked.”

“You’re not a thug,” Mòrag said, rolling her eyes. “You were in a jail cell for a night so that no one from Torna found you and eviscerated you for selling them out to the police. Basically, you were hiding.” The way she put it made it sound a lot less cool. Pyra still seemed pretty impressed, though, which was all that Rex cared about.

“Yeah, I could have been stabbed on the way home!” He said, puffing out his chest.

“What a shame that didn’t happen,” Mythra said, and Rex looked over to see her smiling. Hmm. He hadn’t been expecting that. Maybe she was happy for Pyra or something? He couldn’t really think of any other reason why she’d be pleased right now.

“Don’t be rude,” Pyra said. “I’m sure it was tough. Jail cells aren’t very nice places, we all know that. Rex was very brave.” Rex hadn’t had much choice in the matter, but he liked hearing Pyra compliment him so he wasn’t going to say anything.

“Pfft, you’re just soft for him,” Nia said. “I mean, not that I don’t care and all, but I wasn’t too worried when it all got explained, y’know? I’d rather Torna go to the police station than this house.”

“I’m probably more competent than the police officers,” Mòrag said with a sniff. She really didn’t think much of them. Wow.

“Yes, but we can’t have the police officers knowing that, can we?” Brighid laid a hand on Mòrag’s arm, shooting her a small smile. “Now- perhaps we should leave Rex and Pyra alone, or let them go upstairs. I’m sure they have plenty of things to talk about.”

Pandoria snorted at that and dragged Zeke back towards their room before he could even open his mouth. Rex could only stand there and flush bright red at the implication of those words. That was...definitely not. He didn’t want to do anything as suggestive as they were implying. At least not yet. He could barely even believe Pyra liked him.

Speaking of Pyra, she seemed to have gone just as red as he had. Rex shot her a glance, as if to say ‘shall we?’ and she shrugged before taking his hand and leading him off upstairs. Rex distinctly heard a wolf whistle come from the little group they’d left behind, and although he had no way of knowing for sure, he was almost certain it came from Nia.


	15. Concern

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One week on, and things aren't really resolved.

A week on from the police raid on his work, and Rex was bored. He had nothing to do. He’d applied to a ton of jobs but heard nothing back yet. He wasn’t too worried about that, but Architect was he wasting away at home. Everyone except Nia, who had spent a lot of time out over the last week, had lessons a lot of the time, and when they didn’t they had loads of work to do. It was really miserable, honestly. The only good thing was Pyra. Kissing, Rex had discovered, was a pretty good way to fill large stretches of time when he got too bored. Unfortunately, Pyra also had essays to write and lectures to go to, so she couldn’t be there for him all of the time. 

Technically, he didn’t know that his workplace had been shut down or anything. But he’d seen that Bana had been arrested on the news, because Torna stuff was always really high profile, and while he usually got a call in at least once every three days, he’d had nothing for a week now. So he was pretty sure that was gone now.

On the seventh day of absolutely nothing, Rex was pretty sure he was going to go mad if he didn’t have anything to do. He’d taken to pacing up and down the hallway, but that only lasted five minutes before Nia opened her door, looking irritated. “I get it, Rex, you’re bored. Do you have to walk so loudly?”

“I don’t have anything to do,” he complained. “What’ve you been doing over the last few days, anyway? Any way I can tag along so I’m not shut up in the house?”

“No,” she said, moving back behind the door, but not shutting it quite yet. “Get a job or something.”

“That’s not fair. I’ve been trying to get a job all week, no one wants to hire me.”

“I’m not surprised, if you walk that loudly all the time,” Nia grumbled. “You’d scare away the customers with your massive galumphing feet.”

“Are you okay?” He asked. She’d seemed really out of it lately. Distracted, irritable, and she barely ate with them anymore. On top of that, she’d been spending loads of time out when before she used to stay in the house most of the time. He was worried.

Nia shut the door without responding, and he stared at it. He presumed that meant no, then.

Rex went back to his pacing, this time pulling his phone out of his pocket and debating whether or not he should text Nia instead. She clearly wasn’t up to a face-to-face conversation, but perhaps something where she wouldn’t have to show him any signs of weakness would work better. Nia was weird like that.

‘I’m here to talk if you want to,’ he sent, and then he paused. ‘Face to face or on text. No pressure ofc :)’

‘Thx’ the text came back nearly five minutes after she’d read his messages to her. ‘Mayb later, going out for a bit.’

‘Dont put urself in danger,’ he told her, retreating back to his room. She’d probably feel awkward if she had to walk past him while they were having this text conversation. ‘Let me know if u need anything :)’

He got no response to that text either, and two minutes later, he saw Nia come out of her room. She was wearing a hoodie that she hadn’t been wearing before, and the hood was pulled up far enough to obscure her face. That really didn’t help with Rex’s worrying. He’d been hoping that perhaps she was just moody after the scrapyard incident, but being moody was hardly reason enough to hide her face in public like that.

He had to do something about this. He didn’t exactly know what, but he needed to find out what was going on with her. He was worried that she was doing something really serious. He knew and she knew that Torna knew where she was...what if she got herself hurt by them because she was spending loads of time out in the open?

There seemed to be only one logical thing to do- text Pyra. She was almost definitely busy right now, but it was worth a shot. ‘Hey, kinda worried about Nia?? She’s been acting rly weird lately, just saw her going out with a hoodie covering her face :/ she wouldn’t talk to me at all’. And then, just in case he’d interrupted something, ‘Sorry if you’re busy xx’.

It took a while of him messing around on his phone and being bored, but Pyra got back to him within forty minutes. ‘Just coming out of my lecture now, we can talk about what to do when I get home xxx’.

‘See you then xxxx’ Even though they were talking about something serious, Rex couldn’t help but smile when he spoke to Pyra. She was just amazing. 

Now, to pass the rest of the day until Pyra got back. Rex flopped back against his pillows, glancing down at the floor to see if Gramps was awake. No such luck. As usual, he was fast asleep. Rex kind of envied him, honestly. He couldn’t sleep all the time to alleviate his boredom. He had been pretty glad to have a completely normal sleep schedule over the last few days (after taking a few days to fix it), but that didn’t make up for the boredom. He really needed a job or a hobby or something.

After an hour of doing very little, Rex finally heard the front door open, and a minute later, Pyra came into the room. 

“Hey,” she said. Rex patted the space on the bed next to him, and she sat down, taking his hand. “Is Nia back yet? I noticed she’s been acting funny, but what you said has really made me worry.”

“No,” he said with a sigh. Knowing how long she’d been staying out recently, he’d say that she probably wouldn’t be back until very late this evening, possibly not even until past midnight. “I don’t think she’ll be back for a while.”

“Weird. She doesn’t really seem the type to go out partying or go on long nature walks, and I can’t think of any other reason she would stay up so late.” Pyra leaned her head against Rex’s shoulder, letting out a soft hum that Rex knew by now to be her thinking noise. “Perhaps we should ask Mythra to find out what’s got into her.”

“Why would Mythra know?” He asked. He liked to think he was the person in the house who knew Nia best. Mythra and Nia were friends, sure, but Mythra spent a lot of time out in lessons and partying, and when she was at home she spent her whole time sleeping or studying.

“I want to be incredulous but at this point I’m not even surprised,” Pyra said, sighing. “Rex, you’re very cute, but you’re painfully oblivious. I wish I was like you, because then I wouldn’t have to know that my own sister is having sex with Nia almost every damn night. If anyone’s going to know what’s up with Nia, it’s Mythra.” 

“Oh,” he said quietly. He thought about it for a moment. Come to think of it, there was always a lot of noise coming from down the corridor, but he thought it was Nia having Cat Problems that involved Dromarch knocking stuff over. “...is everyone in this house except me gay?”

“Well, I don’t know about Zeke or Pandoria. Considering how loud they are, they keep their romantic lives weirdly quiet. And- Rex, you forgot me. I’m literally dating you.” Pyra shoved him playfully, and Rex clutched his side, pretending to be hurt. “You’re such an ass.”

“Pandoria and Zeke are drama students, I don’t think they’re straight,” he said, and Pyra just snorted, but she didn’t protest. “I thought that noise was just Dromarch knocking stuff over… I’m never going to be able to look at Nia and Mythra in the same way ever again. You’ve ruined everything, Pyra.”

“Good. Now you can suffer through those noises like I do. Anyway, I’m pretty sure that if you ask Mythra nicely, she’ll agree to check up on Nia for you. I know you’re scared of her, but she’s not all that bad.” 

“Can’t you do it?” He asked, and Pyra laughed at him. “Don’t be like thaaat, she’s scary, and she hates me! She likes you. You’re sisters. And also it looks weird if I ask her to check up on Nia for me. Kinda like I’m stalking her or something.”

“Just because you’re being such a wimp, no. You can do it yourself.” Pyra tapped him on the end of the nose, giving him a very firm look. Rex couldn’t help but marvel on how pretty she was, even when she was being mean to him. It actually wasn’t fair.

“You’re so cruel,” he said, leaning over and putting his head on her shoulder. “Please? We can’t go on a date if your twin murders me for asking her to stalk her girlfriend.”

“You’re not asking her to stalk Nia,” Pyra said. She was smiling and ugh it wasn’t fair. He couldn’t say no to her. “You’re asking her to check up on her because you’re worried about her. Surely she’ll be happy that her girlfriend has such a good friend.”

“I suppose…” He really couldn’t argue with Pyra. She was just too cute. And smarter than him in just about every way. “If she murders me, I’m haunting you forever.” 

“You’re being more dramatic than Zeke, Rex.”


	16. Risk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rex finds out what Nia has been doing.

‘Rex, I have some info on Nia. Pretty sensitive stuff and I’d like to discuss it with you away from the house. Can you meet me outside the theatre at 4:15? -Mythra’ Rex stared at the text for a while. How did Mythra even get his number? That more than anything was slightly concerning, and then there were the contents of the text. It sounded really bad. What had Nia gotten herself into that was so bad that it couldn’t even be discussed in the house? 

‘Yeah, I’ll be there,’ he texted back. 4:15 wasn’t that far away, so he shoved his phone in his pocket, grabbed his coat, and left after briefly telling Pyra where he was going. It was normally a twenty minute walk across town to reach the theatre, but Rex managed it in fifteen, arriving a couple of minutes before the time Mythra had set.

Mythra was already there, sitting on a wall just next to the theatre with a churro in her hand. “Hey, Rex,” she said, waving. She sounded cheerful, but her face told him otherwise. She looked really worried. “Should we go and walk somewhere? So we can talk for a bit.”

“Yeah, okay…” Rex paused, waiting for Mythra to slide off the wall. She beckoned for him to follow her away from the theatre, into a fairly quiet side street. This was getting more worrying as it went. “What’s up?” 

“She’s meeting someone,” Mythra said. “I don’t know who it is, but I know it’s a man and I know it’s someone she isn’t meant to be seeing, because she’s so secretive about it. She doesn’t normally hide things like this. She doesn’t hide anything, really, not if she’s comfortable with you. But she’s hiding this man she’s meeting.”

The longer Mythra spoke, the more Rex got a strange sinking feeling in his stomach. He was fairly sure that he knew exactly who Nia was meeting, and it wasn’t good. “Jin,” he said. “The man from Torna who I...met. I think he and Nia used to be close, and I guess they still are…”

“Oh Architect,” she said. She sounded so worried. Rex wanted to comfort her, but he just didn’t know how. “That’s...really bad. How in Alrest are we going to stop her from seeing him? I can’t… That’s so dangerous for her, even if he doesn’t pose a threat to her physically.”

“I don’t know,” Rex admitted. Seeing Jin could very easily lead Nia to get involved with Torna again, and that was the last thing he- or anyone else- wanted. But how was he supposed to stop her from talking to her close friend? “We could get Jin arrested, but that might just make her feel even worse.” 

“I guess we have to know why she’s seeing him and provide an alternative,” Mythra said. “If it’s because she hates Indol, I’m sure there’s something safer she can do to help people hurt by them.”

“It’s not just one thing though,” he said. “She misses him, too. There’s not much you can do to just replace a person who’s important.”

“Yeah, well, he’s a shitty person, so she’ll have to get over it somehow.” Mythra scowled, then frowned slightly. “...Sorry. I don’t mean to snap, I just...I wish she wouldn’t be so stupid. This was a terrible idea on her part, trying to meet up with someone who’s basically a terrorist. I wanna help her, but I don’t know how.” 

“He is a terrorist,” Rex said. There was no point covering it up, that man had threatened his family and intimidated him while he walked home from work. He was definitely involved in Torna’s terrorist activities. “But I think he’s important to her.”

“Obviously. Ugh, why can’t I just date someone normal for once?” Mythra kicked at a stone on the road. “We should go home before someone starts wondering where we are. And we need to think about how to get Nia away from Jin. I can try the ‘concerned girlfriend’ card, but I have no idea if that’ll work.”

“I’ll think about it,” he said. “And, uh, just checking, are we keeping this one from the others for now?” He couldn’t imagine what Mòrag’s reaction to finding out her housemate was meeting a terrorist who had threatened another housemate would be. That would not be pretty if she found out, and he didn’t imagine the others would react in a better way.

“Yeah. Unless we get really stuck for ideas. Maybe we can tell Mòrag and Brighid then. Definitely not Zeke or Pandoria, though.” That was a fair point. Rex loved those two, but he definitely wouldn’t trust them to keep a secret.

They headed back to the house, barely saying another word to each other. That was probably the longest conversation he’d ever had with Mythra, honestly. She was so scary he didn’t like talking to her unless it was really necessary, but she could be surprisingly nice, if a little short tempered, sometimes. And she was a good ally to have if she was serious about helping Nia. 

At the house, Mytha didn’t bother with a goodbye- she just nodded at Rex, then slunk off upstairs, presumably to do whatever she normally did when she was alone in her room. Rex sighed, then headed upstairs as well, hoping that his brain would grant him some magical way to help Nia soon.

It was a good job he had nothing to do except think, because honestly his mind went round in circles for ages and he was still stumped. He didn’t know how much Jin meant to Nia, but it was obviously a lot, and she clearly didn’t care about getting in trouble for seeing him, because if she did she wouldn’t meet up with him. She was risking a lot for this, and he didn’t know how he could change her mind. This was clearly going to take a lot more effort than he’d hoped. 

He just wanted her to be safe. He wanted her to be happy without needing to talk to a terrorist. He wanted… That was it! Hell, that was what he needed to do. He wanted her to have a future outside of the past she’d been trying to leave behind. If she had a future, she wouldn’t want to risk it by seeing Jin. As it stood, she had nothing, and that was why she was meeting him. Architect, why had he been so stupid?

‘I have an idea,’ he texted to Mythra as quickly as possible. ‘I need you to find out what Nia wants to do in the future.’


	17. News

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rex sees something on the news that gives him an idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There wasn't really any feedback coming through on the last chapter :( if something has gone wrong, you're losing interest, or you have any suggestions, please let me know.

It had been a week since Rex had had his brainwave. In that time, he had indeed found out what Nia wanted to do- apparently, after much coaxing from Mythra, she had admitted that she wanted to do nursing some day. Great, theoretically, except now he was faced with another problem- money.

Nia was eighteen, like him, and that meant she’d dropped out of school. Also, she was in a foreign country and he was pretty sure that the Gormott government didn’t provide any financial covering for education for people living in Uraya. Mor Ardain, perhaps, but not here. And he didn’t think the Urayan government provided funding either.

He’d considered the possibility of asking Zeke to help, because he was a prince and therefore probably stupidly rich, but Rex really couldn’t trust him to keep a secret and he would definitely want to know why Nia suddenly had ambitions to train as a nurse. So he had to find out where to get money from, but he was completely stuck. He didn’t have money (he didn’t even have a job, which was fast becoming a problem as his bank account began to empty) and he didn’t know anyone he could trust who had money.

It didn’t help that the most responsible adult in the house had disappeared off to Architect knew where. Brighid wouldn’t say anything about where Mòrag had gone, only that it was very important. If she wasn’t missing, Rex would have asked her for help with this by now. But for some reason Brighid wouldn’t talk about, Mòrag had gone somewhere. He’d asked the whole household about what they knew, and the most anyone could say was that she’d gone back to Mor Ardain (from Pyra), had left very early in the morning with only one suitcase (Nia) and that it was something to do with her job (Pandoria).

In a state of mild despair and boredom, Rex had settled for lazing in front of the television. He’d heard back from several places he’d applied for jobs at, all with very polite emails of rejection. Somehow, the politeness didn’t really help soften the blow. The worst thing, though, were the places that just didn’t reply. Because he was so rubbish that he didn’t even dignify a reply.

Everything on TV was pretty boring, honestly. Boring dramas, boring murders, boring port documentaries or something. It was all boring and Rex was so bored he just flipped over onto the news. And then everything got a lot less boring. 

Standing to the right of the young Ardainian Emperor was a woman that Rex would recognise anywhere, even wearing a tall hat and a soldier’s uniform. And seeing it now, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t made the connection before.

“The Ardainian delegation to the summit discussing the issue of the terrorist organisation Torna is headed up by the Emperor Niall Ardanach, accompanied by Special Inquisitor Mòrag Ladair.” Architect, he’d been so stupid! How had he never noticed? He’d seen pictures of the Special Inquisitor of Mor Ardain a billion times before. He’d just...always assumed that the Special Inquisitor was a man. Oops. 

“Oh… I guess the secret’s out, then.” Rex jumped, sitting up to see Brighid standing in the doorway. “Mòrag wanted to keep it quiet for privacy’s sake, but she didn’t exactly count on this happening. I trust you won’t go telling the press she lives here?”

Rex scoffed. “Of course not,” he said. “I don’t want them here, and I don’t have anywhere else to disappear to. Mòrag isn’t exactly hurting anyone here. She’s just...wow. She mentioned she worked for the Ardainian imperial family, but… Don’t laugh, okay? I always thought the Special Inquisitor was a man.”

“Ah, you’re hardly the only one, don’t worry.” Brighid smiled. “I think she encourages the rumours. She likes the anonymity.”

“Fair.” Rex knelt up on the sofa, resting his arms on the back of it so that he was properly facing Brighid. “Sorry if this is weird, but...how did you end up dating the Special Inquisitor? Is that even legal?”

Brighid just laughed. “We’ve known each other for a long time,” she said, “since we were both just children. We’ve been together longer than Mòrag has been Special Inquisitor. And yes, it is legal for us to be together providing I don’t hold a post in government.”

“Huh. Cool.” Rex nodded thoughtfully, just imagining what it must be like growing up so close to the imperial family. “So- how did you get to know each other? I guess not every kid in Mor Ardain gets to play with Mòrag Ladair, right?” He didn’t have that much knowledge of politics, but he was smart enough to understand at least a little of how this stuff worked.

“Our parents knew each other,” she said. “My father used to be on the ambassadorial team to Uraya, and both Mòrag’s parents were in the Senate, so we spent a lot of time together waiting for our parents to be done. Basically, money and connections is how we know each other.”

“Cute.” Rex grinned. “First time I met Pyra, we were both waiting in line for burgers, it was taking forever because some lady was yelling at the cashier. Then I roped her into sharing a house with me. And obviously you know the rest, ‘cause you’re here too.”

“That’s pretty cute,” Brighid said. “And not quite as romantic as how myself and Mòrag eventually ended up together.” Rex opened his mouth to ask her about that, but she raised a hand and cut him off. “That is a story I will not tell unless Mòrag gives her express permission.”

“Fiiine.” That just made Rex even more curious. Some day, he would have to wrangle that story out of one of them. “So… How come the Ardainian Special Inquisitor is living in a house with a bunch of randoms? Seems kinda weird when she could probably afford a mansion.” Wait- Mòrag had money. She had money, lots of it, and she would be able to keep a secret way better than Zeke. 

“Mòrag isn’t interested in spending taxpayer money on living it up in Uraya for her degree when if she stayed at home she could walk to lessons every day,” Brighid said with a smile. “She’s lower profile like this. The press don’t know where the house is, and the students who know who Mòrag is don’t know where she lives either. It’s safer.”

“Okay, but- listen, I just had an idea, and this is gonna sound crazy, but hear me out.” Rex stood up from the sofa, taking a deep breath. “You can’t tell anyone any of this. Except Mòrag, because she’s the one who we really need to get on our side here.”

Brighid listened, and looked very worried as he spoke. The whole reason Mòrag was even away right now was because of Torna, and now he was suggesting helping someone who used to be a member of Torna and wasn’t letting go of it. He understood that Mòrag probably didn’t want to spend her money on that kind of thing, but he had to try and help Nia somehow. 

And so, he told her everything. About Nia’s past in Torna, about what Jin had said to him, about Nia’s meetings with him. Brighid, to her credit, listened to it all and didn’t call him crazy even once. When he finally finished, Rex sighed, folding his arms and looking expectantly at Brighid. “You’re either about to agree to help me or tell me to get out of this house, and I really hope it’s the first one.”

“I’ll talk to Mòrag when she comes back,” Brighid said. “I agree that this is an issue and it’s not one that I want to continue. I’d like to help Nia of course, but it would involve speaking to her about it first, and it’s… I’m not saying yes, but I’m definitely not saying no.”

“Thank you.” Rex dragged a hand down his face, wiping away nervous sweat that he didn’t even realise had been accumulating. “Do you know when Mòrag’s gonna be back? I know you said you didn’t, but...do you?” He was maybe getting a little desperate to help Nia, but he couldn’t help it.

“When the summit is over, Mòrag will go back to Mor Ardain,” Brighid said. “From then, I don’t know how long she’ll be, she’ll probably have a lot to do. They tend to pile a lot of work on her when she takes short breaks from university, because they know she won’t be back for a while.”

“Uh-huh.” That wasn’t great news, but hey, at least she was intending to come back. From the ominous way Pandoria had described things, it had sounded as though there was a fair chance of Mòrag never returning. Although, Pandoria made a lot of things sound incredibly ominous. Including the one time she’d microwaved rice and made it explode. To be fair, it had taken a lot of cleaning up.

“She’ll be back within a month,” she said. “At some point, it’ll reach a limit and her brother will just send her home to get on with her degree.”

“Wait, is her brother…” Rex looked over at the TV, which had now moved on to talking about the delegates from Argentum. Brighid didn’t answer, she just chuckled.

“Maybe you should ask Morag when she gets back,” Brighid said. “Because I’m not going to answer that one.” Rex pulled an exaggerated pout, and she laughed again. “Go whine to your girlfriend, Rex, and I’ll cook us all some dinner.”


	18. Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rex and Pyra go on a date.

“This restaurant is a lot nicer when there’s not some lady yelling at the cashier,” Pyra said, smiling. “And also probably because I’m here on a date with you this time.” She blushed slightly, and Rex quietly thanked the universe for making Pyra like him as much as he liked her. 

“It’s a lot better,” Rex said, trying not to nervously eye up the prices. It wasn’t expensive here or anything, but he was severely running out of money and he needed to be careful about it. He couldn’t say no to Pyra asking him to go on an evening out with her, though. He couldn’t pass up spending time with her and her alone.

“Mm… You look kinda worried. Is it money again? Hey- I’ll pay for your food, it’s fine.” Rex opened his mouth to protest, but Pyra silenced him with a kiss. Alright, then. He wasn’t going to argue with that. “Y’know, it’s a bit cheaper if we order our food to go. Why don’t we go take our burgers to that little field down the road? The trees’ll just be starting to glow…”

It was pretty cold outside, but he nodded immediately. People wouldn’t look at them so strangely for kissing if they were out in the open, and the cold might lessen the heat in his face a little. “That should be really nice. You don’t have to pay for me, you know-”

“No,” Pyra said, poking his nose. “I have plenty of money and you don’t, so let me pay. And don’t go ordering the cheapest thing on the menu to save me money.” Rex had been about to do just that, but he rolled his eyes and then relayed the order he actually wanted to the cashier. Pyra smiled, squeezing his hand. Architect, Rex would do anything to make her happy… 

He loved her. It hit him like an angry armu straight in the ribs. Architect, he loved her, and he would do anything for her. In a moment, he was breathless and she was utterly beautiful. He wanted to tell her right there and then, but it wasn’t the right time.

“Uhh...Rex? You okay?” Pyra waved her hand in front of his face, and he blinked. 

“Oh- yeah- sorry. Lost in thought.” He sighed, letting Pyra lead him away to wait for their food. Maybe he could tell her later. Was it too soon to say things like that? They’d been together a month now, and he’d liked her much longer than that.

“Come on, silly,” she said, grabbing his left hand and handing over the bag of food. “I paid, you can carry. Do you want to cross the river and go up to the saffronia grove?”

He nodded, letting her lead him out of the place. The food was warm in his hands and his left hand was warm in Pyra’s right. She was warm and perfect and he definitely wanted to tell her that he loved her. Because at the moment, there was nothing he was surer of.

It was a short walk to the grove, and they spent it in companionable silence. It was one of the things Rex liked most about Pyra- they didn’t have to talk all the time to feel comfortable. They could just lie in bed together, take a long walk, anything they wanted. 

Pyra guided him over to a spot under a large tree, where soft red leaves had already carpeted the ground underneath. They still glowed slightly, even off the tree- sitting down on them made Rex feel as though he was on some sort of magic carpet. Once they sat down, Pyra scooted closer to him, and their sides were touching as they sat there, watching the world below them.

Rex put the food down in front of them and grabbed Pyra’s, handing it to her, and then got his own. For a couple of moments, they appreciated their burgers in comfortable silence. They were good burgers, and he was starving, and by the looks of it, Pyra was too. 

 

They were both half finished with their food before either one of them spoke up. “The trees make everything so beautiful,” Pyra murmured. “You’d think I’d be used to them after living here a while, but...nope. They’re still just...unfairly pretty.” Just like you, Rex wanted to say.

“They’re nice,” he said. “The glow makes you-” his mouth dried up at the obvious cheesy line that came to mind, but he powered through. “The glow makes you look even more radiant.” He could feel himself going bright red and the rush of blood almost made him lightheaded.

“Rex, you’re adorable.” Pyra laughed. “The glow makes your blush look even brighter than it normally is.” She poked his cheek fondly. “You’re so sweet. I gotta wonder why you like a nerd like me.”

“B-because you’re really pretty and you’re not exactly nerdy you’re- you’re really intelligent and you know loads of stuff. You have common sense I guess? More than I do.” he didn’t really know what to say (or more, he had a thousand things to say but couldn’t string them into a coherent sentence) but the smile on Pyra’s face just made him want to keep complimenting her forever. “And you’re just- so understanding, and sweet, and- fuck it, I love you.” 

The smile froze for a moment, and Rex wondered if he’d made an awful mistake. But then Pyra grinned, and she flung her arms around him. “Oh… I love you, too. Way to drop that bombshell on me. I’m glad you did, though.”

Rex potentially had tears in his eyes. But only maybe, because he didn’t cry unless it was very important… He was crying because Pyra just said she loved him. She loved him! Everything he’d been feeling, all of it, it was all returned and she was wonderful and Architect he loved her.

“Rex, you’re a huge dork,” Pyra mumbled against his shoulder. “I can feel you crying on me. Come on, I didn’t think you were one for happy tears. How about instead of crying you kiss me?” That sounded like a good idea, so Rex wiped his eyes and sat up a little straighter. He’d never let it be said that he would disappoint Pyra when it came to kisses. 

“I’m sure that can be arranged,” he said, leaning in. The problem was that they were both smiling way too much for the kisses to actually feel normal. After a few moments, they both pulled away pretty much at the same time, unable to stop giggling. “Or maybe not.”

“Yeah… Let’s just finish our food?” Rex nodded, reaching for his burger again. Holding it in one hand, he slung the other arm around Pyra’s shoulders, keeping her close. She leaned her head against him, and he glanced down to see her still smiling as he ate. Out here, it was so easy to forget his problems for a little while.


	19. Proposition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rex tells Mòrag his idea for helping Nia.

“...and that’s what you want to do?” Mòrag asked. “You want me to pay for Nia to go to school so she stops talking to terrorists?” When she said it in that tone, it didn’t sound like such a good idea.

“It was the only thing I could think of,” he admitted. “He’s important to her and she doesn’t really have anything to risk at the moment.”

“Hmm…” Mòrag folded her arms, looking down her nose at Rex. Spending time in Mor Ardain seemed to only have renewed that scary, imperial sort of look about her. “I’ve heard worse ideas. Many of them in the last four weeks. Have you actually asked Nia if she wants this?”

“I didn’t want to ask her and then find out that I couldn’t get the money to help,” he admitted. “Can’t get money from the government because none of us are citizens and I have no money to contribute anyway. It’d be pointless to suggest it if it’s no more of a dream than the one she has already.”

“Alright. Well… I will agree to help, if you talk to her and ensure that you’re actually doing something she wants. It’s a lot of training to become a nurse, you wouldn’t want to force her into it.” Rex breathed a sigh of relief, nodding frantically.

“Yes- yes, I’ll go talk to her now. Thank you!” He hurried up the stairs and turned towards Nia’s room before realising he had no idea if she was even in the house. He also didn’t know what he was going to say to her. ‘Mòrag is going to pay for you to go back to school as long as you don’t talk to terrorists anymore’ probably wouldn’t do it.

Well, he had to say something. He knocked on her door. There was a long pause, then a mumbled ‘come in’. Nia had been getting more withdrawn lately- whenever Brighid cooked them all meals, she would show up late. Rex was anxious to help her as soon as possible.

“Hi,” he said. “I just- if it’s okay, I wanted to talk to you about something?” Nia didn’t look pleased, but she sighed and nodded. “I’m- I’m worried about you, and I guess you must be seeing Jin or something and-”

“Don’t try and tell me not to,” she snapped. “There’s no reason I shouldn’t.”

“I know why you’re doing it,” he said. “I get it. But I just...it’s dangerous, and I was talking to Mòrag and she said that if you, um, if you agreed not to see him and stuck to that and worked hard and stuff she’d pay school fees.”

“What,” Nia said flatly. She was way too good at not giving away her emotions. Rex had no idea if she was happy or if she wanted to rip him to pieces. “Rex. What made you think I want to go to school? I don’t like all the studying…”

“You, um…” Oh Architect what if he had it all wrong? What if she didn’t want to become a nurse? What if this was just going to continue until she put herself in more and more danger? He just wanted Nia to be happy. “It’s kinda weird but… Mythra said you said you wanted to be a nurse. And I-I guess you need to go to school for that.”

“...Oh. Nursing school.” Nia still wasn’t giving away any emotions, but she scooped Dromarch up off the floor and set him down on her lap. She was quiet for a minute, her hands running through the cat’s fur over and over. “Mòrag said she’d pay for everything? Tuition, books, transport? I really don’t have any money…”

“She said I had to ask you if you wanted to,” he said. “And she said she wanted to talk to you properly about it too and sort stuff out, I think. So you’d have to ask her. But she did say she was willing to help you if you wanted it.”

“I… I think I want it.” Nia took a deep breath, letting it out in a shaky rush of air. “I really don’t know why you’re so intent on helping me, Rex, but thank you. I suppose I’d better go and talk to Mòrag now.” She shifted Dromarch off her lap again and stood up, crossing over to the door. In the doorway, she paused, then turned back and wrapped her arms around Rex. Surprised, he hugged her back. “You’d better not tell anyone I hugged you,” she warned. “Otherwise everyone will want in on the action.” 

“Cross my heart,” he said, grinning at her. He couldn’t believe that she’d actually accepted his offer. She’d actually agreed to talk it out and he couldn’t quite believe it. He’d hoped she would, of course, but it hadn’t seemed all that likely. She’d been so distant recently. Obviously, all she’d needed was something like this. 

“Again, thank you, Rex. Now- I’m gonna go sort all of this out.” Nia squeezed him one last time and then pulled away, smiling more brightly than he’d seen in ages. 

“Not a problem, Nia. Anything for a friend.” He watched her go, and stood in the doorway of the room for a few moments before Dromarch rubbed himself against his leg. Rex smiled and bent down to pet him on the head, and he purred. Well, shit. He was definitely stuck here for several minutes now.

Fifteen minutes later, Nia came back. Rex had sat on the floor, and Dromarch had moved onto his lap. Nia gave him an odd look, crossing over to her desk. “You’re still here? If you’re waiting for me to get done talking to Mòrag, it’ll be a while. I just came to get a pen to write some stuff down.”

“No, uh… Your cat kidnapped me. I can’t move.” Nia just looked at him again and snorted.

“You’re an absolute pushover sometimes,” she said, reaching over to pet Dromarch on the head. “Just shove him off your lap. If he’s really looking for attention he’ll just follow you back to your room and get cat hair all over your bed.”

“It’s already covered in cat hair from Gramps…” Rex looked fondly down at the cat in his lap. “I can’t shove him off…” 

“You’re as daft as a brush, Rex.” Nia shook her head, pushing an indignant Dromarch off of his lap and swatting Rex lightly on the head. “Go on, get back to your own bedroom. What would Pyra think if she saw you in here, hmm?” 

“That I’m hanging out with my friend’s cat, probably. Which is true.” 

“Go hang out with my cat in your own room, then,” she said. “He doesn’t like it when people kiss, by the way. He likes to get in on the action, so don’t even try having sex with Pyra while he’s in the room.” All Rex could do in response was make a strangled noise and flush bright red.

“I- I wasn’t gonna-”

“Oh, it’s okay. Don’t look so embarrassed.” Nia grinned. “Do you kick Gramps out of the room when you two do it?”

“Nia!” Rex went even redder, and she howled with laughter.

“Rex, you’re adorable. I’m gonna go now, try not to spontaneously combust in my bedroom.” With that, she patted him on the head like he was a child or something and practically waltzed out of the room. He would be vaguely annoyed at the teasing, but honestly he was just glad that she was feeling happy again. It made such a nice change, to have her joking around. It seemed things were looking up now.


	20. Parting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nia asks Rex to help her tie up some loose ends.

Nia and Mòrag spent several hours working through whatever they were trying to sort out. Rex didn’t know why it was so complicated, but Nia didn’t seem bothered about doing it. When he checked in on them both to call them for dinner (at Brighid’s orders), they’d been sitting together at a desk and Mòrag actually looked interested in helping and she didn’t seem irritated in the slightest. It made him smile.

He spent the evening with Pyra, her doing homework and him scrolling through his phone looking for jobs. That was enough to occupy them both for a long while, and it would have been an even longer while if Rex hadn’t gotten a text from Nia. 

‘Meet me in my room, I need you to do something for me.’ He frowned, showing the text to Pyra, who shrugged and told him to go for it. Rex reluctantly wriggled out of bed, smoothing down his clothes and wandering down the hallway to Nia’s room.

“Hey. What’s up?” Nia looked really worried and conflicted, and she was pacing round her room.

“I want to meet up with Jin to say goodbye for good,” she said. Rex opened his mouth to protest, tell her what she’d promised Mòrag, but she stopped him. “I asked Mòrag and she said it was probably a good idea so he doesn’t try to contact me again or anything. And I, uh, I wanted you to come with me, if that’s okay. I’m not sure I trust myself to go alone.” 

“I- okay. I’ll do it. As long as he’s not going to kill me or anything…” Nia seemed convinced that Jin was all sweet and nice, but he really wasn’t sold on that idea. 

“I promise he won’t. I said I’d meet him in the park in half an hour from now- is that okay?”

“You just...meet him in the park?” He asked. He hadn’t imagined it would be so public, honestly. Anyone would be able to see them. Anyone would be able to see Jin, and recognise him, and that couldn’t be good. Someone could already have noted to the police what was going on, just like he had at the scrapyard.

“It’s dark, he keeps his hood up.” Nia shrugged. “No one’s ever noticed us yet. And after tonight, I won’t see him again. It’s fine, Rex. Now- can we go, please? Before I lose my nerve…” She seemed jittery, anxious- Rex couldn’t blame her. Who knew what Jin’s reaction to all of this would be?

“Okay, let’s go,” he said, trying to offer a confident grin to her. She smiled weakly back and headed down the stairs. “We’ll try not to be too long, right?”

“I just want to say goodbye,” Nia said, “and explain why and such. I’m not planning on waiting around, that’ll just make it harder.” Nia waved to Mòrag, who was standing in the kitchen, and she nodded back before the pair of them left the house.

It was a long, silent walk to the park. The nervous energy emanating off of Nia was palpable; it was making Rex feel even more anxious about this than he already had been. Once they were in the park, Nia led him to a large tree, glancing around. “He’s not here yet, so we just have to wait.”

“Will he come over if I’m here?” He asked. Nia shrugged, propping herself up against the tree and gazing out over the park. Even when it was dark, Fonsa Myma wasn’t much different to how it was during the day. The light was just orange rather than faintly blue. Rex figured that Nia wasn’t really in a talking sort of mood, so he leaned back against the tree as well, and waited. And waited.

Ten minutes later, a hooded figure with his hands in his pockets approached them, walking very fast and clearly trying not to be seen. “Nia. What did you want to talk to me about. And- why is Rex here?”

“I’m- ah, Jin, hear me out, okay? I know that we’ve been meeting up for a while and I’ve really loved seeing you again, but…”

“Has something happened?” Jin asked. Rex was pretty sure that he was being glared at.

“No, well, sort of- it’s because I, um, got sponsorship from someone. To go back to school so I can get qualifications and a job that I want to do and all of that.” Nia’s voice sounded slightly shaky. “And I don’t want to risk that by talking to you. I- I’m really sorry.”

“I see.” Even in the dark, Rex could see a muscle in Jin’s jaw twitching, like he was keeping his teeth gritted. “Rex. If you are forcing Nia into this, I will break every bone in your body. I will-”

“Jin, stop it. He’s not forcing me into anything.” Nia scowled at him, stepping firmly between him and Rex. Rex quietly breathed a sigh of relief. “And if you hurt him, or his family, I’ll tell the police everything I know about you. Rex is my friend, and he’s helped me. Torna was there for me when I needed someone, but you- you made me do some awful things. That’s how you live, and I don’t- I can’t have any part of it. Rex, and my other housemates, they’ve tried to build me up. I’m sick of you trying to drag me back down to your level. Thank you for being my friend, Jin, but I can’t talk to you any more. Ever.” 

Jin glared at Nia for a moment, and then he stepped backwards, his head turned away. “I understand,” he said. “And I want you to succeed. I thought this was helping you, but apparently not. This put both of us at risk and it’s a wise idea to end it here before things go south.” He sounded...sad. Rex almost felt sorry for him. “I don’t like what I do, but I think it’s necessary. If you don’t feel that way, then just make sure you don’t stand against me in the future.”

“Alright.” Nia sighed, stepping forward. “This is goodbye, then.” She sounded like she was trying not to cry. If she did cry, Rex decided that he was not going to even mention it. Nia was not a crying sort of person. 

“I suppose it is. Goodbye, Nia.” Jin held out his arms, and Nia hesitated before stepping forwards into them. Their hug wasn’t very long, but it was tight, and when Nia pulled away, Rex could definitely see tears in her eyes. 

“Goodbye, Jin. Don’t- don’t go killing yourself over something stupid, okay?” She lifted a hand, making an attempt at her usual cheery wave. Jin turned away, walking back across the park and eventually out of sight. Nia stood and watched him every step of the way. When he was gone, Rex opened his mouth to speak, only to find Nia wrapping her arms around him and burying her face in his shoulder. Alright, no talking just yet.

It was over. Jin was gone, out of sight, and hopefully out of their lives forever. Now, maybe Nia could really move on and get her life going again, free from all the terrible things in her past. But Rex was pretty sure that moving past it was going to take a lot from Nia. She was trying to leave her whole past life behind, and from what he could tell she’d already failed to move on once. The only thing he could do was try and support her as much as possible.

“I...think I’m ready to leave now.” Nia stepped away from Rex, turning away from him to wipe her eyes on her sleeve. Dutifully, Rex didn’t even mention that she had been crying. “Thanks for coming with me. Sorry that he threatened you.” 

“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s sort of understandable, seeing as he thought I was threatening you. Do you wanna go straight back or get something to eat?”

“Neither of us have any money,” Nia said with a short laugh. “So we should probably go straight back. If not, we’ll just be wandering around in the darkness.”

“Yeah…” She had a point. Rex shoved his hands in his pockets, gently elbowing Nia in the side. “Come on, then. Let’s get home.” Nia nodded, and together they headed off out of the park. The silence between them as they walked wasn’t anxious anymore, it was more sad- but then again, maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. Nia would get over being sad. She’d said it herself, she had friends to help her through it. And Rex intended to do everything he could to help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I maybe cried when reading Nia's speech to Jin :( (my co-author wrote that bit). I'm sad that this fic is coming towards the end (final chapter is being written at the time of posting this chapter), but it's been great fun!


	21. Gift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rex gets something in return.

A couple more weeks passed, and while Nia had successfully applied and secured a place starting soon at a school, Rex still hadn’t managed to get an interview for any places, let alone a job. It was getting worrying and he’d run out of money last time he paid his rent. Now, he had nothing, and the day he needed to pay was coming up again soon. He was scared to tell Mòrag that he couldn’t pay.

Pyra, of course, had offered to pay for him. Rex had so far declined all fifteen times, but he was starting to think that relying on her help might become his only option. He didn’t even know how much spare money she had lying around, and he was worried about putting a burden on her. He knew that her family was wealthy, but he didn’t want to take money she needed from her. But he couldn’t afford to become homeless. He couldn’t even afford a ship back home to Leftheria.

He just felt like he was in an impossible situation at this point. There was nothing he could do to get any form of income at the moment. So, he had resorted to spending most of his days lying around, applying for job after job. Why did nowhere else have low enough standards to employ an eighteen year old like him? 

At almost seven in the evening on one of his long days of doing nothing, someone tapped him on the shoulder. Rex almost jumped out of his skin, sitting up to see Zeke grinning at him. “What?”

“A gift,” Zeke said, grinning the widest he’d ever seen. “From everyone who appreciates you being here, thanking you for looking out for Nia and making everyone happy because you’re always so cheerful.” He handed Rex an envelope.

“Um…” Rex took the envelope, curious. It was very flat, but thick- as if there was a large sheaf of paper in there. Money? That would be useful. He opened it, tipping it up to let the contents fall out into his hand. Not money. A long form of some kind, various parts of it already filled in. “What’s this?” 

“It’s an application form,” he said, still grinning. “Essay statement courtesy of Mythra. It’s an application to an apprenticeship for salvaging. So you can get paid while you train for a proper job and all that. You just need to sign it and send it off.”

“What?” Rex couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. He smoothed out the form, actually taking the time to read through it properly. A salvaging apprenticeship at the training centre here in Fonsa Myma, working under someone called Vandham. The difficult bits of the form- all the longer questions that involved too much writing- had been filled out for him. And Mòrag had written him a letter of recommendation that was positively glowing with praise. Did she really think that highly of him?

“Figured they aren’t going to turn down someone with a recommendation from the Ardainian Special Inquisitor,” Zeke said, still grinning. “So? Are you happy?” 

“I-” Rex just stared at the page. He looked at all the pages. They must have spent ages writing this. Reading it, some of it even sounded like he could have written it. They were the things he would say but didn’t have the skill of expression to get them out of his head and onto the page. “I don’t know what to say. This is… Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“Don’t just thank me. I mean- it was my idea, so do thank me, but thank everyone else as well. Everyone except Pyra knew about it. We would have told her, but you two are too close. No idea if she would have kept the secret.” Zeke kept talking, chattering about all the details of the plan he’d put together, but Rex was too busy staring at the application form in shock to actually listen. This was everything he’d ever wanted, and it was real. 

He still couldn’t quite put it all into words. It was amazing and Architect he had no idea what he’d done to deserve such wonderful people in his life. Before all of this, he’d felt so alone. And now he was in a house full of people who were willing to pay out of pocket to get an ex-terrorist out of a downwards spiral and help a nobody dropout get training. It was beyond anything he’d ever imagined when he’d decided to move out.

“Rex?” Zeke’s voice snapped him out of the daydream he’d been having.

“Huh?” At his general confused sound, Zeke just chuckled lightly.

“You were just staring. Thought you’d zoned out or something. I asked, are you going to go tell Pyra the good news?” 

“Oh! Yes- yeah, I should go tell her now.” Rex practically bounced off the sofa, flashing a grin at Zeke as he bounded upstairs. He hadn’t felt this good in months. 

He burst into their shared bedroom with a huge grin on his face and waved the pieces of paper in Pyra’s face. She looked very confused. “What’s that?” She asked.

“It’s an application form,” he said, grinning. “To a salvaging apprenticeship.”

“What?” Pyra sat up, snatching the paper from him to read through it. “Rex… Oh, this is amazing. Is this that big surprise everyone’s been muttering about for weeks? I’ve been seeing people huddled in small groups whispering to each other, but they always stopped whenever I came in the room. Guess I know why, now.” She laughed, standing up to hug Rex. “I’m so happy for you.” 

“I don’t have it yet,” he said, but he still couldn’t stop grinning. The application was so great that he couldn’t really see himself not getting it. If he got it...it would solve a lot of his problems and would set him on exactly the path he’d always wanted to take, he’d just never had enough money before.

“Shut up, there’s no way they won’t take you.” Pyra pulled back to kiss him, and Rex could barely even kiss back for smiling. “You’re gonna be amazing, Rex. This is exactly what you wanted, and you deserve it so much. I love you.”

“I love you too,” he said, leaning in to kiss her again. He couldn’t believe everything was falling into place like this. This was all better than he ever could have dreamed. “Guess I have to post this at some point.”

“At some point, yeah. Maybe not today, though? I think we should spend the evening together to celebrate…” Pyra was grinning at him, and Rex had a feeling he knew exactly what she wanted to do. And he was more than happy with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And then the camera fades to black ;)
> 
> The final chapter will go up tomorrow, as it's already written :) from there, my writing partner and I will endeavour to come back to this au to post a couple short things to do with it. We're also working on a different au to post soon.


	22. Fresh Start

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's reaching the end of the year and the whole house have ample reason to celebrate.

“You’re sure your family doesn’t mind you not being home for Elystice?” Rex looked over at Pyra, who was busy texting her parents to let them know how much of a good time she was having here. “I’m sure I can give you up for a couple weeks if you wanna go home…”

“I don’t really want to go home,” she said. “You guys are the ones I want to spend time with. Specifically you. Being with my parents again will be really awkward because they invite all the extended family for Elystice. You know how Mòrag said she didn’t want to go home because of all the big parties? Well, that, except I don’t actually have to go home.”

“Aww. I’d invite you to my place, but I can’t afford one ticket, let alone two. And I suppose there’s a ton of people back home, too…” Rex could only imagine how many small children would ask Pyra awkward questions about being his girlfriend. “C’mon. Brighid’s probably done cooking lunch by now.” With a little help from all of them, she’d spent the morning putting together a pretty spectacular Elystice feast.

Mòrag and Brighid would be leaving that evening on an overnight ship to Mor Ardain, so they were doing a couple of the celebrations a little early, including a small exchange of the presents concerning those who were leaving. The rest were being saved for the actual evening of the Elystice celebrations (Brighid had assured them that her Elystice with Mòrag would involve a party with copious amounts of alcohol, so it almost made up for missing the holiday with them).

Taking Pyra’s hand, Rex headed out of the room and down the stairs. Delicious smells of cooking food were wafting up from the kitchen, and when Rex peered inside, he could see Mòrag attacking a large piece of meat with a carving knife. Brighid seemed pretty busy putting the finishing touches to everything else, so Rex let Pyra lead him over to where Nia and Mythra were chatting by the lit fireplace.

“Merry Elystice, lovebirds,” Nia said with a grin. “Please keep it down next time.” Rex flushed bright red and was fully intending blaming it on the warmth coming from the fireplace, but Pyra rose to the challenge.

“Only if you’ll do the same,” she said. “Listening to someone moaning Nia’s name in a voice startlingly similar to my own is decidedly unnerving.”

Mythra opened her mouth to reply, but she was interrupted by Pandoria abruptly jumping into their circle, closely followed by Zeke. 

“I see blushes! And arguing! Not having any little lover’s tiffs before Elystice, are we?” Zeke wiggled his eyebrows, and Mythra smacked him on the arm. Nia did the same a moment later, considerably harder. “Ow! I’m wounded, I tell you. Wounded!” He made an exaggerated movement much like he always did and Pandoria stood there with her head in her hands.

“Put a sock in it, shellhead,” Nia said. “We’re having playful banter, as you’d call it, I imagine. These two make too much noise when they’re going at it.” Zeke looked between them, meeting Rex’s gaze and raising an eyebrow. He just shrugged. 

“Well,” Zeke said. “As an outside party, I shall act as mediator and inform you that you are all too loud. You keep me and poor Pandy awake sometimes, all four of you. Perhaps I should go and thank Mòrag and Brighid for being considerate enough to keep their voices down!”

“Don’t,” Mythra warned him. “Mòrag has a knife. I’d stay as far away as possible and definitely not mention her and her girlfriend having sex. Although you are right, I never hear them…” 

Rex tried to give her a Look. As she’d just said, it was a dangerous discussion, and you never knew when either of them was secretly eavesdropping. “Maybe they’re just experienced,” Nia said. “Or maybe they go in for gags or something.”

“Please stop,” Rex said immediately. “I don’t want to think about this and I don’t want our Elystice meal to end in a stabbing. Or begin with one, for that matter.”

“Fine, fine.” Nia folded her arms and sat back, leaning against Mythra’s arm. Just in time, too- Mòrag came out of the kitchen, still holding her knife. 

“Brighid says to tell you to sit down, the meal’s ready. Minimal fuss about who’s sitting where today, please…” She gripped her knife a little tighter, then turned on her heel to go back to helping Brighid.

“I’m fine sitting anywhere as long as it’s not within throwing distance of that carving knife!” Zeke called into the kitchen. Mòrag just sniffed in response and continued to viciously stab the armu leg on the board.

Getting everyone sat down remained a difficult task, even with the threat of a stabbing hanging over their heads. Everyone wanted to sit next to everyone else but no one wanted to sit by the bookshelf because Dromarch had a habit of dive bombing plates from up there. That always made for an interesting meal.

In the end, Nia ended up by the bookshelf (‘he’s your cat, you deal with him’) and Rex found himself in between Pyra and Zeke. Not too bad, unless Zeke decided to get too dramatic in his storytelling and accidentally elbowed him in the face. It wouldn’t be the first time. They sat and waited as Brighid brought in various plates of food, all of which smelled delicious. Finally, Mòrag entered with a surprisingly well-carved pile of meat- Rex could have sworn she’d just been stabbing it, but obviously there was a method to her madness. 

The meal was chaotic, to say the least. Their meals always were, because there were eight of them plus the two cats and that just...there were too many people to have a single, civil conversation. On top of that, they had Zeke in the conversation and it also turned out that Nia was a little bit of a lightweight. So, she was yelling just as loudly as Zeke by halfway through the meal. Rex was used to chaos, but this was somehow different to the chaos at his home in Leftheria. Different in a nice way, although he couldn’t pinpoint how, exactly. 

Forty five minutes later, a decent amount of the food was gone, and the conversation had lulled considerably as everyone nursed very full stomachs. Mòrag got up from the table (impressive- Rex wasn’t sure he would be able to move for at least an hour), and came back with an envelope.

“I know we said we’d do presents a little bit later, but this one is special. Rex, it’s for you.”

Rex’s heart lept the moment he saw it. He had a pretty good indication of what this was, and if it was a present… “Did you read it?” He asked, taking it and running his fingers over the thick envelope.

“I couldn’t say,” Mòrag said, keeping her face impassive. Architect, why was it her who’d picked it up? He couldn’t tell a thing from her.

His hands shaking a little, Rex tore open the envelope and tipped out what was inside. A few glossy booklets, and wrapped around them, a letter. Not just any letter. 

“Rex Adamis,” he read aloud. “Congratulations on your acceptance to-” He couldn’t read any more. He put the letter down, looking up at everyone else around the table. “I got in,” he managed, his voice an excited sort of whisper. Speaking properly seemed slightly out of his reach right now. 

Pyra leapt out of her seat and wrapped her arms around his neck at the same time as Nia jumped out of hers and came to aggressively ruffle his hair. “I’m so proud,” Pyra said, and Rex was maybe tearing up a bit because of how happy he was. This was just...amazing.

He’d always wanted to be a salvager. When he was little, it was probably his greatest ambition. There was a small school in Fonsett and the teachers always told them about the amazing things discovered through salvaging. But as he grew he’d realised what an expensive profession it was, and he’d never had the money to train. Sorting through junk that was occasionally salvaged was the closest he ever managed to get to it until now.

“I take it my Elystice present was appreciated?” Mòrag smiled knowingly, and all Rex could do was nod. Everyone around the table was beaming at him, looking almost as happy as he felt. Rex had never had friends like these before. He’d never even anticipated himself getting along so well with such an eclectic group of people, but here he was. He’d come here only a few months ago to make a fresh start. Now, he was surrounded by so many wonderful people and his life had changed forever. For the better.

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaaaaand thank you for reading!! I'm sad to finish this fic but this is the logical end of the plot. I'm really happy I managed to finish this piece as I very rarely finish multi-chapter fics, and pretty much never finish ones of this length.
> 
> If you've enjoyed this ride, please don't forget to leave a comment as they mean a lot to me. A particular thanks to NiaNya, PsiHate, and OniLinkPlus for commenting so regularly while this fic was still a work in progress, your support means a lot!
> 
> Other things: I (Sam, the writer of all these notes and the person who replies to your comments) have a Tumblr and an AO3 account I publish solo pieces on! My Tumblr is gaymoragladair and my AO3 is StevetheIcecube. My coauthor can be found on Tumblr at heroofthesheikah. There will also be more Xeno 2 fanfics from this account, so if you'd like to be alerted to those you can author subscribe, and if you're interested specifically in fics in this au then you can subscribe to the series that should be linked....somewhere.
> 
> If you read all of this, thank you so much! <3 readers are part of the reason why it's so fun to write fanfic.


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